Jokerz in the Society
by Jack Spheniscidae Enterprises
Summary: a story about a guy who has had it with living in a society. this started as a standalone joker (2019) story but then it became a persona crossover half-way through.
1. Chapter 1 - Enter the Game of Death!

Chapter One - Enter the Game of Death!

It was sometime during the 1980s in Gotham City and Arthur Fleck had spent his entire existence living in a society. He had no meaningful relationships to speak of, not even the slimmest of connections within this tangled web of drained noodles that was humanity in the colander of Gotham City. Arthur was no noodle but the unwanted boiled water that dripped off into the darkest depths of the sink below.

All Arthur of the Fleck lineage had to show for himself was dreams, a veritable stack of pizza boxes of failures.

"This sucks. All my life all I have done is dream it, instead of being it." Arthur complained to himself one day on his beat as the closing sales sign-twirling clown, while he was chasing down some punk kids who stole his sign.

"This is what you get for making light of someone going out of business, you problematic clown! You outta be canceled!" Said the Punk Kid Leader as he surprised Arthur by smacking him in the face with the sign as Arthur chased them down an alley.

"Owie owie." Arthur cried in pain as the gang of kids beat him up and left him writhing in pain.

"At least I am still working." Arthur tried to look on the bright side as he dragged himself to his feet and limped back to his workspace, Gotham Clown Central.

"Arthur, you're fired." His boss said as Arthur walked in.

"Oh." Arthur said and then he walked out.

Arthur then walked back to his crummy apartment, where he still lived with his mother who charted his destiny like Magellan charted the Earth. On his way into the elevator, he suddenly bumped into the black lady from Deadpool 2. Despite a disparity of what twenty years between the two, Arthur was instantly smitten with the Negress.

Arthur imagined himself going on dates and stuff with the black lady from Deadpool 2.

"Hey, you wanna date me?" He snapped back to reality and asked her.

"Hell no." She then opened up her twitter app to make a tweet about this encounter, exaggerating a few details and added an epilogue where everyone claps.

"Oh." Arthur slumped back to his apartment where his mother Penny Fleck was waiting for him.

"Son I know this may not be the best time but I have some bad news for you." Penny informed him.

"What is it Mother?" Arthur Fleck said as he popped down on the couch to watch some TV and drink some beer. He flipped to his favorite show, The Robert De Niro Show.

"You are actually adopted." Penny revealed.

"What the blazes? Mother, you said last week that I was actually the bastard son of Thomas Wayne from your sordid love affair! I went to his house and tried to bond with my presumed half-brother Bruce Wayne and everything and got beat up by the guy I thought was my dad for my troubles!" Arthur ranted with such ferocity it shocked his mother.

"Well, I lied. And… Oh no my heart." Penny said as the stress of this revelation and Arthur's reaction to it gave her a heart attack. She collapsed on the floor and Arthur trying to calm down took a deep breath and looked at the television again.

"Man, what a crummy day. But ah, at least I still have The Robert De Niro Show to cast some sunshine upon this perpetual rainy day." Arthur tried to reassure himself. But he wasn't really feeling it, because ever since he watched the Game of Thrones series finale, all the joy had been sapped out of television for Arthur Fleck.

And tonight, it was especially off.

On the television, something curious was going on. Arthur realized that Robert De Niro was showing a recording of his failed stand-up routine.

"Ha ha ha get a load of this _**joker**_!" Robert De Niro told his audience as Arthur fumbled through all his jokes on the recording with maniacal laughter. Seeing his idol mock him live to an audience of millions cut at a nerve in Arthur at nothing like before, and there was an awakening in him bubbling to the surface.

"That does it! If even the one who inspired my dreams mocks me, what do I have left to live for?" Arthur mused hopelessly. He reached into his pocket and took out his gun and put it in his mouth.

"I'm gonna kill myself! I have had it with this society!" Arthur declared but before he pulled the trigger, he thought about it some more. "Naw." Arthur then decided. "Why should I pay society back for its years of abuses with my life? No I shall make it pay me with theirs! ROBERT DE NIRO, I SHALL HAVE VENGEANCE!"

Arthur rushed into his room and found his finest suit, along with his white facepaint and green hair dye. With a quick make-up, Arthur underwent the Metamorphosis but unlike that chump Gregor Samsa it was a cool transformation not a sucky one.

"You wanna call me a joker? Alright you got yourselves a Joker!" Declared The Joker in front of a mirror as he readied to storm out and take on society.

"Wait, Arthur, I'm not dead yet. Get me to the hospital!" Penny begged.

"I'm adopted, I don't have to listen to you anymore, Moooommm!" The Joker got ready to shoot his mom.

"Wait don't do it. I was lying about the ad" But it was too late for Mother's protests because the Joker then shot her.

As The Joker got onto the streets, a cop who looked like Eli Thompson from the five-season HBO show Boardwalk Empire noticed him and was instantly suspicious.

"Stop right there, you menace to society! I cannot let you menace society!" The cop pulled out his gun and badge.

"Nah." The Joker shot the cop. As the cop fell to the ground in bullet-ridden pain, a gang of disenfranchised young people looking for some meaning in their desolate lives of perpetual ennui picked bare by living in a society saw what Joker had done and were instantly smitten.

"Yo Joker you the man!" One of the young people said.

"Like totally we are all clowns!" Said another and then they all reached into their pants and pulled out clown masks to put on in emulation of the Joker. They then started riots and chaos because they were meaningless young people adrift and what better could they do to anchor themselves?

The Joker saw it all and it warmed his heart to see that in a way his dreams of acceptance and popularity had finally become a thing. He then drove to the studio where they were taping The Robert De Niro Show to finish some unfinished business.

"And that's it for tonight folks!" Robert De Niro addressed the live audience to cheers and applause, but then The Joker moonwalked onto stage, before pointing his gun at Robert De Niro.

"What the blazes is this? Who the deuce are you?" Robert De Niro asked.

"Who I am is not important! But you can call me Joker! And I'm gonna shoot you in the dick!" The Joker proclaimed before firing into Robert De Niro's dick.

"Oooowaaaagh! MY DICCCCCK." Robert De Niro cried out in pain and keeled as his legs clumped together like magnets.

"Yes yes yes! REVENGE!" The Joker danced a jig and laughed before Robert De Niro's face sharpened up into a devilish grin.

"PSYCH BITCH." Robert De Niro sprang back up and did a flip-kick into The Jokers chin, sending him flying like an Apollo rocket.

"Arggggh but how! I shot you in the dick!" The Joker demanded to know as Robert De Niro did the splits and out popped the bullet. Robert De Niro had caught the bullet with his unmentionables using an ancient Tibetan technique Martin Scorsese taught him!

"Stupid joker, I was in Mean Streets! You think bullets alone can stop me!" Robert De Niro taunted The Joker.

"Damn you! You hurt my feelings! Everything I did, everyone I killed, it's your fault!" As The Joker fired again and again at Robert De Niro but Robert De Niro was far too skilled, dodging like an Olympic acrobat or kicking the bullets out of the air like Bruce Lee.

"Hmm. Mindless violence, an irrational rage, an absolutely no introspection... I bet this is the result of you playing too many video games." Robert De Niro assumed in between evasions.

"What the hell? I don't play video games! Besides playing video games isn't what makes people violent! Cancelling good tv shows does! Daredevil on Netflix was a good show and then they cancelled it after letting it end on that tease!" The Joker ranted.

"Hey he stole that joke from Scary Movie!" Bruce Wayne who was in the audience with his family as a birthday treat, pointed out.

"Great gorgonzola! You cannot even come up with original material! You really are a hack comedian!" Robert De Niro let some more mockery slip.

"RAAAAAAAGH! THIS IS FOR GODFATHER PART III, YOU HOLLYWOOD SCUM." The Joker shot Robert De Niro in the mouth, and then shot Thomas and Martha Wayne for their stupid son's stupid words as well.

"Nooooooo!" Bruce Wayne fell to his knees in front of his dead parents.

"Remember kid, this ain't my fault! It's society's fault! Everything is a joke and we're all just punchlines!" The Joker insisted.

"Punchline, huh? You first." The Joker whirled his head back at Robert De Niro to see he was still alive, having caught the bullet in between his teeth.

"What the blazes? How are you al" But The Joker never got to finish his sentence because Robert De Niro ground up the bullet with his teeth and spat molten lead onto his knuckles, turning his hands into volcanic fists of justice.

"RAAAAAAAGING BUUUUUULL!" Robert De Niro charged into The Joker and beat the stuffing out of him.

The Joker screamed as Robert De Niro blasted him through the wall into a dumpster, before Robert De Niro levitated through the hole and did a full-force landing on his ribs. The Joker gasped for air as his ribs broke, unable to believe that society had defeated him once again.

"You really think you could defeat me, joker? I AM UNTOUCHABLE!" Robert De Niro proclaimed as he tap-danced on The Joker's body, breaking even more important stuff.

"This… isn't… over…" The Joker choked. "I… will… get… my… revenge… I'LL MAKE YOU PAY, ROBERT DE NIRO, EVEN IF IT TAKES ME TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!"

"That's the first joke I heard from you even close ta funny. But still not close enough." Robert De Niro said flustered as he dusted himself off. "Hot damn, I had a good thing goin' for a fella this Gotham City talk show and now you done fudged it up, clownface. I hadda cut alla my Hollywood connections ta get it and now I might hafta go back ta drivin' taxis. I gotta hit the Casino, snort some Jackie Brown, to blow off alla this steam ya got me pumpin'."

Robert De Niro slammed down the dumpster lid, leaving the Joker to lick his wounds inside the darkness with nothing but trash and rabid raccoons for company. Robert De Niro stepped back inside the ruins of his once prestigious television studio, where Bruce Wayne was still crying over his dead parents.

"Aw damn, here's the kinda tragedy that only happens once upon a time in America. Here kid, have some money. It makes everythin' better. Just don't waste it becomin' somethin' stupid like a superhero or somethin'." Robert De Niro reached into his coat pocket and flung some Benjamins onto Bruce Wayne, who only wept more.

Meanwhile in the dark of the dumpster, as he sank deeper into the trash and was coated in bin juice, The Joker grew closer and closer to catatonia. Society was proving itself too much for him. As rabid raccoons clawed and bit him all over, sending their rabies coursing through his blood, The Joker wondered how he could have been such a fool to think that one clown alone could defeat society's greatest assassin, Robert De Niro.

The Joker readied for the darkness to take him, readied to be discovered dead tomorrow as another forgotten victim who had spent too long living in society.

But then came a light of hope, as the dumpster was ripped open. The Joker saw his saviors.

Three men, with green hair and white faces, just like him! One was dressed like a classy old school gangster, the other had a Glasgow smile, and the other had an iconic Damaged tattoo on his forehead. It was Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Jared Leto's Jokers from the movies Batman, The Dark Knight, and Academy Award-winning Suicide Squad.

"Are you… you also living in a society?" The Joker managed to croak.

"Hell yeah we did. We are Jokers just like you, brother from another mother." Said the leader who was Jack Nicholson's Joker.

"Ya wanna know how I got these scars? LIVING IN A SOCIETY. And together we are gonna make society pay for everything with the head of Batman!" Heath Ledger's Joker declared. "And then… chaos reigns."

"Fuck Batman." Jared Leto's Joker hissed through his filthy grill of broken teeth, as he mimed a gunshot to his iconic damaged tattoo.

"Who's Batman?" The Joker blinked in confusion as the three Jokers helped him out of the dumpster.

"The ultimate agent of society! A Chad Incarnate! The one who ensures that the existence of its callous indifference that has ripped apart the lives of those like us and turned us upon this path to villainy persists! He beats us up and then steals all the glory and women that should be ours!" Heath Ledger's Joker said.

"It's never our fault! It's clearly them - those of society - not you or me!" Jared Leto's Joker added as The Joker nodded in agreement to everything they were saying.

"Well, I'll be! This Batman sounds awful! And I bet I know just who he is! A certain Hollywood elite called Robert De Niro! He ruined my life just like the Batman ruined yours! They must be one and the same!" The Joker deduced with brilliant logic.

"That sounds like a plan! Robert De Niro shall dance with the devil in the pale moonlight! THE DANCE OF DEATH!" Jack Nicholson's Joker agreed and patted The Joker on the back, welcoming him into their storied fold. "To the Jokermobile, ya'll!"

"GAMERS RISE UP!" They all shouted in unison as they ran. The Joker wasn't sure if he was a gamer as they ran, but it sure felt good to belong and be accepted.

The four Jokers all began laughing like the madman they were out the alleyway towards Jared Leto Joker's Purple Lamborghini which was parked across both a handicapped and no parking space, with an unpaid meter. They piled into the sleek clown car and as its engine roared to life, they blasted off into the Gotham City that still slept unaware in peace and innocence.

A Gotham City that soon would be awash with madness and then war, bloody war.

The War of Gamers and Chads.


	2. Chapter 2 - Gamers of the Time Streams

Chapter Two – Gamers of the Time Streams

The Four Jokers were bouncing along in their Purple Lamborghini causing mayhem in the Gotham City streets as they ran over every bum, crossing guard, super rat, and girl scout cookie stand they saw amongst other things.

"Hee hoo hee! This is some real Grand Theft Auto V shit!" Laughed Jared Leto's Joker behind the driver's wheel as he steered the Lamborghini into the wrong lane and drove through the incoming traffic causing accidents and chaos left and right.

"GTAV? What a stupid bandwagoning casual you are. Real fans know that Rockstar peaked with GTAIV and it was all flipping downhill from there." Grumbled Heath Ledger's Joker in the shotgun seat as he clenched his fists with furious ire at the mere sound of praise for the sequel of open world vehicular theft and mayhem that he perceived as lesser.

"Aw shaddup. You stupid kids and your fancy three-deeeee graphics and personal gaming com-poo-tah rigs and four-kaaaaay ultra aaaaaaaych-deeeeee consoles! Back in my day we had proper video games before these flashin' and bangin' bread and circuses! Two-die-mensional sprites and coin operated in the vi-dee-oh arcade, the way it should be done! BEEPS AND BOOPS! Nintendo Switch? MORE LIKE NINTENDO SHIT!" Ranted Jack Nicholson's Joker from the back, where he sat next to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker who was getting kind of confused by all of this.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, BOOMER!" Jared Leto and Heath Ledger's Jokers snapped back at him in unison, and Jack Nicholson's Joker went to grumbling to himself like a crazy old man usually does.

"So anyway, what do you prefer, man?" Heath Ledger's Joker turned to ask Joaquin Phoenix's Joker. "GTAIV or V, my man? Say V if you ever need to tell a girl where you got some scars…" Heath Ledger's Joker then took out a knife and tapped it against the rolled up window.

"Grand Theft Auto… IV… V?" Joaquin Phoenix's Joker blinked in confusion. "When… when… did they make that many sequels to that Ron Howard movie?"

"WHAAAAAAAT." All the other Jokers spat out their tea. "You don't know what a GTA is? What kinda a gamer are you?"

"Guys, I'm no gamer. I don't play video games. I don't have money for them. I'm poor." Joaquin Phoenix's Joker confessed.

"Well, we're gonna have to do something about that." Jack Nicholson's Joker swore.

"Oh boy, oh boy, here we go… this party's gonna get crazy." Heath Ledger's Joker smacked his lips and rubbed his palms together.

"We gamers can't rise up if we aren't all on the same start screen." Jared Leto's Joker noted.

The Jokers then drove to a crummy apartment building on the outskirts on town. It was falling apart at the foundations with windows boarded up or broken, fungus and vines creeping up all along the walls. The tenants were primarily of the furry or shelled four-legged variety.

"You all live together?" Joaquin Phoenix's Joker asked as they climbed over squatting bums that clogged the creaking staircase to the Joker's apartment.

"Of course!" Jack Nicholson's Joker snapped his finger to emphasize the point. "We don't have enough money to pay rent to live on our own cause we spend it all on video games!"

"Wow! Are these video games you speak of so great that they are worth forgoing the basic necessities?"

"Behold and see for yourself!" Jared Leto's Joker kicked the door to their apartment open and true to his word Joaquin Phoenix's Joker was bedazzled by the lights that assaulted his corneas with their flashy majesty. Every inch of the place, though squalid and dilapidated and a health hazard for certain, was instantly ascended through the beeping and booping contraptions that penetrated every socket and consumed every mere centimeter of wall in the place.

"Are these video games?" Joaquin Phoenix's Joker asked in amazement. "And not some pervert's sex toys?" He added as he picked up dusty wii remotes in a grimy condom grip with the motion plus extension attached.

"We got all the games! All the way from Atari to Playstation! I used to burn all my money but then I realized I could spend it all on video games!" Heath Ledger's Joker chuckled.

Joaquin Phoenix's Joker then went up to the wall that had the Playstation 4. A small wooden tray containing several thin blue plastic cases with paper inside was next to it. He picked up one of the cases and on it was cover art of some gothic looking fucker holding a gun and an axe posing with his back to the camera all cool and gothic like.

"Yo, this game is some real hardcore gangsta shizzle." Jared Leto's Joker said, complimenting his choice.

"Hmm… Bloodborne. How curious." Joaquin Phoenix's Joker looked the case open and saw that it could be cracked open, so he did. Inside was a blu-ray disc and an inset slip for some other game called Until Dawn.

"Until Dawn? Now that was a great game! Much better than alla dat wack David Cage shit." Jared Leto's Joker commented looking over Joaquin Phoenix's Joker's shoulder.

Joaquin Phoenix's Joker guessed that all you had to do to play the video games was put the disc in the Playstation thingy, then start pushing the buttons on the other thingy. So he did just that and soon he was starting to play Bloodborne. He started the game at some sort of screen where he was supposed to make a character but he just shrugged and went with the default appearance.

"Hey, that isn't right. Who does this new Joker think he is?" Heath Ledger's Joker whispered to Jared Leto's Joker.

"Yeah, you're supposed to spend at least an hour agonizing in achingly orgasmic pain to create your avatar! And then scrap it and start all over again cause his nose looks funny in a cutscene!" Jared Leto's Joker nodded in agreement.

"Shut it you too! Back in my day, we didn't have fancy dancy wancy character creation in our video games! We took our teeny tiny sprites straight up and we liked them!" Jack Nicholson's Joker grumbled.

Meanwhile for his session of Bloodborne, Joaquin Phoenix's Joker wasn't feeling too swell. He had started the game in a dingy looking hospital which was giving him some PTSD from the time he spent institutionalized. Then he got killed monster looking thing in the hospital. He then got a weapon and a gun (he picked the cane and pistol) which he used to kill the thing that killed him and he thought he was in for smooth sailing from there on out but then he stepped outside and immediately got killed by a villager with a torch. And then he started getting killed over and over again by more villagers, dogs, werewolves, executioner looking guys, a giant ugly mass of tentacles teeth and eyeballs, and even a giant pig at one point. No matter where he went and how hard he tried to fight them, he kept dying and starting over at square one.

He lost about twenty million blood echoes in a few minutes and he didn't even beat the Cleric Beast.

"Arrrrrgh! Bloodborne is too hard!" Joaquin Phoenix's Joker cried and threw his controller at the screen.

"Git gud, casual." Jared Leto's Joker hissed.

Joaquin Phoenix's Joker was about to get out of his seat when Heath Ledger's Joker kicked him back in.

"What kinda gamer do you think you are? Just giving up at the first sign of adversity you cannot easily triumph over? That is not the gamer way, you noob!" Heath Ledger's Joker chastised him.

"You young punks with your Fromsofts and Dee Em Cees! You don't know what true challenge is! Back in my day, video games didn't just beat you! They sodomized you and we loved it!" Jack Nicholson's Joker said fondly.

"We'll make a gamer of you, yet." The Three Jokers swore. They then tied up Joaquin Phoenix's Joker and got all their games and consoles and rigs and arcade cabinets in a roll. They then spent the next few hours forcing him to try many different video games, hoping that they would find something that he was good at. After all, Bloodborne was but one game and all games are not for everybody. Surely he would find something for him?

But then those hours passed, and it started to seem like there was nothing for him, as the other Jokers noticed that he was doing everything wrong while he was playing.

He played The Legend of Zelda (the og one for NES) and was never able to find the sword. He played Super Mario Bros and kept falling down the first pit he came across. He played Grand Theft Auto Vice City and he followed the traffic laws like a good citizen. He played Team Fortress 2 and played as Medic but only ever healed enemy spies when he bothered healing at all. He played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Carth Onasi became his favorite character. He played Payday 2, which is like the video game equivalent of eating at Arby's. And so on, and so forth.

"By the blazing feathers of plummeting Icarus! This space case is utterly hopeless!" Jack Nicholson's Joker declared.

"And I thought my jokes were bad. But here's the one even worse with a gamepad in its hands right in front of me." Heath Ledger's Joker looked at Joaquin Phoenix's gameplay which was making him want to carve a smile into his wrists.

"There is just no gittin' gud for this one." Jared Leto's Joker wrenched Joaquin Phoenix's Joker out of his seat and dragged him to the window. As Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson's Jokers pulled the window open Jared Leto's Joker heaved and hoed.

"Nooooooo!" Joaquin Phoenix's Joker squealed as he was thrown out the window and he broke his ass as he landed.

"Don't come back! You've disgraced what it means to be a gamer, you filthy casual!" They shouted after him as Joaquin Phoenix's Joker limped away into the run-down Gotham streets.

He saw a set of stairs leading up away from the other Jokers apartment and in a defeated slump, he struggled up to a destination he knew not.

In a heartbroken catatonia, The Joker wandered the streets in a stunned haze. He could not believe that for the first time in his life he had found what he was certain to be true companionship and just as quickly he had fucked it up and lost it all. Now his new friends thought he was a stupid loser and didn't want to be his friends anymore, and his arch nemesis Robert De Niro would escape into the afterlife unpunished.

"Welp, might as well go end my life now. For real this time." The Joker promised to himself and he pulled his gun out of his pocket, and made sure it was loaded more than a twenty-grand hooker.

The Joker hijacked a car and drove it to the woods, since the woods seemed like a nice quiet place to commit suicide unmolested. When he got to the woods he parked his car at a nice spot near the trees and then walked into the forest. He found a clearing and sat on a log, and put the barrel of his gun in a mouth. The Joker reminisced about how this had all started with his decision to kill himself and then deciding not to, and now here he was. All in all, a pretty roundabout way of killing one's self.

Right before he was gonna pull the trigger, his finger halted in its tracks as loud, orchestral music began blaring outta nowhere. The music reeked of heroism and courage, the sort of pure power music that pumped the blood up for a good workout, the kind that generals play as their armies march to war.

"What in Jiminy Cricket? Who is playing such music? What is the meaning of it?" The Joker asked as he pulled his gun of his mouth to think aloud, as he realized that the music had someone singing. It was a deep voiced man accompanied by a choir blathering something in some Asiatic language. He tried to listen more clearly. What was he saying? The Joker didn't know a lick of Japanese or Chinese or any other kind of gook speak, but he could make out some words that sounded like something. Seg… Seguhtuh? San-something? San… shee-roh?

"SEGA SATURN SHIRO!" The Joker's questions were answered for him as a tall, super muscular Japanese man in a karate gi burst out of the nowhere. The Joker did not even have time to say what the fuck as the man was upon him. The Joker pointed his gun with intentions of shooting, but the man was a demon with reflexes of lighting and before he knew it, The Joker was sailing through the air via a masterful judo throw.

"Aaaaaaagh!" The Joker flew into a tree and cracked his back. "Who the blazes are you?" The Joker asked of his attacker, who sternly stood over him with his arms crossed. The man then uncrossed his arms, and reached into his gi jacket, and pulled out a white video game console with a controller attached. On the console was the name, Sega Saturn.

"Sega Saturn Shiro!" The mysterious Man thrust the Sega Saturn into the Joker's confused hands.

It was the undefeated champion of the thousand-man kumite! The one and only eleventh-degree black belt in judo, karate, and about sixty-seven more! The unconquered emissary of the Sega Saturn, spreading its message to the cosmos and beyond! The legend who lesser gaming mascots spoke of only in hushed and fearful whispers! The old soldier whose war would never end, even with the sun long set over his fallen empire! The one who would kick your childrens' asses and make your wife his bitch! Segata Sanshiro! Of course, The Joker didn't know any of this.

"What do you want?" The Joker asked fearfully.

"No gamer calls it quits on my watch!" Segata Sanshiro swore.

(Author's Note: All of Segata Sanshiro's dialogue is translated from the Japanese)

"Gamer! I am no gamer! I am no good at all! Why won't you gaming freaks just leave me alone?" The Joker insisted.

"Foolish fool!" Segata Sanshiro smacked The Joker for his insolent stupidity and then began using him as a punching bag as he said a motivational speech. "Caving into your weakness does you no favors! Do not fear your weakness! For what is weakness but a chance to get back up and do better? Quash it like you would any bug! Though that the Sega that I loved for is long gone, I remember what it stood for! I came back from death itself to travel the multiverse to ensure gamers like you would never forget either! You will come to realize your true potential of a gamer… or drop dead."

Segata Sanshiro then put The Joker on a gaming training regimen. For one brutal month, The Joker trained to become better as a gamer. The Joker carried giant Sega Saturn controllers made of titanium that weighed tons of tons on his back and ran laps across the entirety of the United States. He did push ups playing Big the Cat's levels in Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast with his lips every time he pushed down, as Segata Sanshiro stacked a Sega Saturn on his back every time he pushed back up adding more weight for him to bear. He was made to break Super Nintendos Nintendo 64s and Playtations, the symbols of the former enemy with his bare fists like breaking a board in karate.

All of this happened while Segata Sanshiro's song played on an endless loop, and his training was an ordeal more grueling than gruel, and slowly the Japs chanting Sega Saturn Shiro was driving The Joker sane.

"Argh this is too hard! Why am I training to become a gamer? Gaming is wack!" The Joker declared one day to Segata Sanshiro a couple months later after his training was too hard.

Segata Sanshiro sighed. Could this worm have dug so deeply yet learned so little? He proceeded to beat The Joker up with his judo chops and throws, breaking a couple of bones. He crumpled The Joker up into a heap and flung him onto the ground.

"I know much about you, Joker. I have trained many of your kind in the Arts of Sega Saturn, schooled you in the gaming ways. How can you truly become the Enemy of Society if you do not become the Ultimate Antithesis to a well-rounded member of society, the gamer?" Segata Sanshiro bequeathed wise words. "Would you admit that your greatest enemy, Robert De Niro, was right?"

"No, I would never."

"Then you must become something greater than yourself. Something more than flesh and bone. A symbol, a legend, Mr. Fleck. A Gamer. And a real gamer never gives up, for what is a quitter but a filthy casual?"

"Yes, I finally understand." The Joker realized what he had to do if he truly was to become a Joker worthy of the name. Perhaps it was not a bad thing that he could never get a good job or a girlfriend. Because it was never meant to be, this destiny of his took a different path when the trail forked.

"Prove that more than hollow talk ebbs through your veins! Dare to complete your training. Become the greatest gamer this realm has ever seen!" Segata Sanshiro encouraged The Joker. Though all his bones were broken and he could not move and barely breath, The Joker threw himself back into his training, even more determined than he had been at the start to see it through. He would become a gamer or die trying, but no matter what, he knew with pride that he had stood his ground against the temptations of society.

Several weeks later, The Joker completed his gamer training and received a black controller (the black signifies that this is highest rank of controller attainable by a practitioner of gaming).

"Thank you Segata Sanshiro." The Joker said gratefully as he packed his scant belongings for the long journey that he had ahead of him.

"You should thank yourself, Joker-san. For it is only you who could ever realize the true strength, the heart of a warrior, that beat within you." Segata Sanshiro said with more wisdom.

"Where will you go now?"

"I shall go wherever the winds take me." Segata Sanshiro said. But then he turned around with one final wise saying for Joker. "You may be a gamer at last, a mountainous achievement. But even mountains crumble when the earth quakes, and the fault that is society relentless. Society shall tempt you with things like friendship a job and a girlfriend named Veronica. But beware of the snakes that slither amongst the Chads. Do not even dream of getting a life, therefore forsaking the lessons that Sega Saturn has taught you. For I shall be watching dressed to kill, always." Segata Sanshiro cracked his knuckles before he jumped up up and away into the sunset.

"Wow what a legend. Well, time to get back to those other clowns and show 'em what I'm made of." The Joker put on a song by a known pedophile rock and roll felon Gary Glitter to signify that his transformation into a gamer and a true Joker was finally complete with a choice in song that was so bravely controversial and edgy. To this tune, The Joker danced down the steps in front of the other Jokers' apartment.

Inside their apartment, The Three Jokers were playing the video game Batman Arkham Origins.

"You know, guys, Batman is such a jerk but his games are so good." Heath Ledger's Joker said while they watched the cutscene where Joker kills Electrocutioner. He laughed as his onscreen counterpart yeeted Electrocutioner out of a window. "Arkham Asylum and City were such great games, it's too bad they never made a sequel to close out the saga after this prequel."

"Yeah, I'm sure if they ever made a third Arkham game, it would be an epic to end all other epics. I'm totally sure it won't be an underwhelming mess with yet another lifeless deserted city, an utterly contrived and compacted timeline, with an overemphasis on vehicular content and repetitive open world checklists." Jared Leto's Joker said, before all Jokers paused and then looked at the camera for comedic effect.

"I think that is enough Batman for today. Let's play something else." Heath Ledger's Joker popped the disc out of his Playstation 4. He looked at all the other games that they had for the Playstation 4 and then saw a case with a pretty bad box art of a racially ambiguous bald guys face staring.

"Hey guys how about Detroit Become Human?" Upon hearing that name Jared Leto's Joker almost barfed.

"Aw, Heavy Hell No. More like Detroit: David Cage Has Never Met A Human, amirite?" Said Jared Leto's Joker as he put his hand where a smiling mouth was tattooed on it over his mouth and made laughter, moving his hand so that his tattoo was also laughing as he laughed at his own joke.

"Of all the hacks in modern gaming, David Cage is by far the greatest. An French buffoon who could not write his way out of a page of Mad Libs, a true android himself who has no grasp of even the most superficial aspects of humanity, relying upon vicious emotional manipulation or a real Hollywood actor to mask his deficiencies. His games are not true games. They are torture contraptions, as seen in cinematic classics like A Clockwork Orange and Brazil." Jack Nicholson's Joker chimed in.

"I don't know, I just think he's wasting too much time on this problematic Civil Rights metaphor stuff instead of the cool robot cop." Heath Ledger's Joker shrugged. "Meh, there's no need for civil rights anymore. People of color and women-folk have it too good anyways, gamers are the real persecuted minority in modern society." To this the other Jokers agreed, but Jack Nicholson's Joker had some more thoughts about Detroit's cool robot cop.

"Sonny, he's just ripping off Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. And I, Robot, And Ex Machina. And RoboCop. And Metropolis. And just about every other movie, show, game, and novel about robots made within the last century of existence."

"You neglect to mention Alita Battle Angel. With this and Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson, Hollywood has finally gotten anime right." Jared Leto's Joker stated. "They are the girl power movies that the pandering SJW trash Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel wish they were."

"Yeah Alita was a great ass movie. If we will be getting four Marvel movies a year soon, surely capitalism can spare us one Alita sequel." Heath Ledger's Joker agreed. "Otherwise, I might add a new scar to my throat outta despair."

"Say why don't we take a game break and do the one thing gamers love almost as much as gaming?" Asked Jared Leto's Joker suddenly, as he brought up his laptop and opened up KissAnime.

"You sayin' what I think you sayin'?" Heath Ledger's Joker replied.

"Of course! LET'S WATCH SOME ANIME!" And then the two Jokers cheered, while Jack Nicholson's Joker almost retched at the notion.

A few hours later, the three Jokers had finished binging the modern anime classic of excellently written narrative and characterization, Darling in the Franxx. Before that they had watched other great animes like Sword Art Online and Boku no Pico.

"That was great! It's the EVA of a new generation, without the sissy ass lead and soyboy depression narratives of EVA!" Jared Leto's Joker applauded, oblivious to Heath Ledger's Joker's baffled reaction to the twenty-something episodes of escalating bullshit they had just experienced. Jared Leto's Joker then started scrolling through what other anime was available. "Ooh, what's this? Love Your Mom or something? Sounds like a hentai. Honka honka, I hope it's a hentai."

"Christ, anime really has gone downhill. All this happy crappy Japland's pumpin' out, and they still won't make a second season of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. And I thought my crimes were heinous." Heath Ledger's Joker groaned. "Back in my day, we had good anime. The legends and the classics! Like Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Martian Successor Nadesico, Code Geass, Trigun, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Ghost Stories (the dub only), Mobile Fighter G Gundam..." Heath Ledger's Joker began rattling off a list of random animes from the 90s, 00s, and early 10s.

"Bitch, you're just nostalgic. Half of that shit probably aged as well as my mama's droopy titties and the other half was shit when it was fresh. Remember SoulTaker? Ghost Stories (the sub only and subs before dubs you fucking normie)? And all dat shit like Narutard and One Pee Pee that got the normies into anime?" Jared Leto's Joker argued with some examples that Heath Ledger's Joker did not list. Jared Leto's Joker never watched a single episode of Naruto or One Piece but was compelled to hate on them because they were mainstream and had done the worst thing that any piece of media could do: get normie newcomers into the medium, for that way the SJWs lie. "Besides whaddabout JoJo?" Upon mentioning JoJo, the two Jokers were compelled to pose in powerfully masculine and erotic manners.

"Fine, some exceptions. But those are exceptions, not the rule to this sea of crapanime we wade through!" Heath Ledger's Joker insisted.

"Anime sucks." Jack Nicholson's Joker chimed in. "It ain't patriotic for a good American citizen to be watching it. Why back in my day we had our cartoons produced by AMERICAN studios and we enjoye"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP BOOMER." The other two Jokers snapped at him in unison.

The Jokers began arguing over the merits of anime vs western cartoons when suddenly the sound of Little Red Corvette by Prince blared through their building. Without warning, Joaquin Phoenix's Joker kicked down the door.

"I'm back, you tooty frooties."

"Who said you could come back here?" Jack Nicholson's Joker shouted.

"You're no gamer. You're not even a real Joker." Heath Ledger's Joker insisted.

"Yeah, where's your purple and green?" Said Jared Leto's Joker as he pulled out a chart from his pants containing the proper specifications and requirements for a proper Joker.

"Shut up and watch me game." Joaquin Phoenix's Joker stormed up to the other Jokers and flung them all to the side. And proceeded to demonstrate his growth, the proof that he had become a gamer just like them.

No, not just like them. A gamer more than them.

"Astonishing amazeballs, is he doing what I think he is doing?" Jared Leto's Joker asked in astonishment.

"It cannot be possible! But he is making it possible!" Heath Ledger's Joker realized.

Joaquin Phoenix's Joker spent the next few days showing off all his new gaming skills on a myriad of games, demonstrating unforeseen talents and setting all kinds of new records. He made Bloodborne which had started it all his bitch by beating it naked with just his fists and pebbles. He beat the Lily Pad _**and**_ Pachinko levels in Super Mario Sunshine without losing a single life in under ten seconds. He beat Devil May Cry 5 on Hell and Hell with a perfect S-rank using just level one Royal Guard. He unlocked Chapter 3 in Metal Gear Solid V. He did the harem route in Persona 5 and was not punished on Valentine's Day. He mained hunting horn in Monster Hunter World and soloed the game and its expansion all by himself using default gear. And last but not least, he was able to download P.T.

"My mind cannot believe what my eyes are telling me, but my heart is telling me it is true. Joker, you have become a gamer!"

"No, not just a gamer. The Gamer. And it's about time you rose up to my beat." Joaquin Phoenix's Joker laughed as the other Jokers bowed before him in exaltation. His big dick energy was running rampant from the vibes of worship they gave him, so astronomical that he almost could've become a Chad in this moment if he wanted to. But the Chads were their enemy, and soon they would take the fight to them, starting with the head of Robert De Niro.

The Joker felt his cheek and realized he was bleeding. He remembered that on the way here, he had been run over by a taxi. He shrugged. He was alive and it was no big deal. And the blood on his fingertips gave him a great idea.

He wiped his fingers upon the corners of his mouth, stretching his red clown smile even wider. And in the coming days, he would see just how far he could take this smile. Not with his own blood, but with the blood of his enemies. Ah, the thought was sweeter than a strawberry milkshake.

Soon, it would be showtime.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Darkest Hour

Chapter Three – The Game Is Darkest Before The Win Screen!

The Four Jokers had planned a grand attack that would take out Phoenix Joker's ultimate enemy, Robert De Niro, whom he had convinced the other Jokers was also their ultimate enemy the Batman.

Robert De Niro owned a fancy Gotham City penthouse in the top of a skyscraper in the middle of the city and Leto Joker was going to pilot his purple attack helicopter (its gender was female before you go assuming anything) up to the penthouse as the other Jokers swung and crashed in via ropes. It would be a simple smash and slash operation, but if needed Leto Joker would then provide covering fire when the SOS flare was fired or he got the order on his Walky-Talky.

Since there was no SOS flare yet Leto Joker was trying to pass the time by reading a Michael Moorcock novel. However he was struggling to since he kept laying eyes on the author's name on the cover and bursting into hysterics.

"Moorcock… heh heh heh… Moorcock! HAW HAW HAW HAW!" Leto Joker laughed like a hysteric and threw the novel over his shoulder. When he calmed down, Leto Joker looked out the window.

"What the Freaky Friday Fandango is that?" Leto Joker said as he saw that smoke and fire was billowing out of the penthouse.

His walky-talky then squawked to static-filled life.

"Oh God Jared Leto Joker, it's all gone belly up! We need covering fire now! JUST GO FULL MONTY." Phoenix Joker begged over the walky-talky.

"I'm on it!" Leto Joker warmed up the mini-guns and then fired enough bullets to shred the entire population of Asian Elephants left in the world to bloody proboscis into the penthouse. But to his shock, as the smoke cleared, he saw all his bullets had hit an elderly white-haired bespectacled man. It was the legendary Hollywood director, Martin Scorsese! And though his shirt was riddled full of bullet holes, Martin Scorsese was not dead or dying!

"Martin Scorsese, what in Blue Velvet are you doing here?" Leto Joker demanded.

"Robert De Niro is my pal! And when ya fuck wit my pals, Marty takes the gloves off!" Martin Scorsese ripped his shirt off to reveal a bulging muscular chest, the physique of a man decades younger than he truly was. And he had caught all of Leto Joker's bullets somehow with his bare skin!

"How are you still standing! I have an attack helicopter! I'm invincible!"

"Mothuhfuggah, I'm Martin Scorsese! The bonafiddlin' master of biofeedback! Maximizing the human bodey with my mentallics to its maximum potential just like how I do it for cinema wit my movies!" Martin Scorsese revealed before he thrusted his pelvis forward and fired all the bullets back at Leto Joker's attack helicopter.

"NOOOOOOOO! MAYDAY MAYDAY" Leto Joker cried out but it was too late as the bullets tore through the attack helicopter and it went spiraling down into the city and then it crashed and exploded.

"Oh shit they got Jared Leto Joker! And our escape vehicle!" Ledger Joker announced to the other two Jokers as they watched the despairing chaos while hiding behind an overturned couch.

Meanwhile, Robert De Niro was leading his Goodfellas co-star and fellow real Hollywood actor man Joe Pesci on a leash, who was sniffing like a bloodhound. In one hand he held the leash, while in the other he held a smoking tommy gun.

"Come out, come out, wherever ya are, ya little jokers! COME OUT TO PLAY-AY-AY-AYYYYYY!" Robert De Niro called out while ringing a cowbell.

"This was supposed to be super ninja stealth assassination! How did Robert De Niro know we were coming?" Phoenix Joker said flustered.

"How are we supposed to know? You're the one who planned this hit, fearless leader!" Nicholson Joker smacked him.

"Hey, that hurt!" Phoenix Joker then retaliated by trying to smack Nicholson Joker but Nicholson Joker ducked and he smacked Ledger Joker instead.

"Oh you wanna play rough? THEN HERE WE GO!" Ledger Joker, intending to hit Phoenix Joker, socked Nicholson Joker as he got back up. Soon all Jokers were smacking each other like the Three Stooges and had blown their cover.

"A-ha! There youse are!" Robert De Niro laughed as Joe Pesci howled like the werewolf under a full moon.

"Lemme at em, Robbie, lemme at em!" Joe Pesci begged.

"Wait before we turn the tables and kill you how did you know we were coming?" Phoenix Joker demanded to know.

"Walking toilet brushes, you think youse the first Jokers who thought to dethrone me? Robert De Niro, the mothafuggin King a Comedy himself? I GOT CONTINGENCIES, YA GRAPEFRUITS!" Robert De Niro then did a gangster pose.

"That cinches it! He must be Batman!" Nicholson and Ledger Joker agreed. "Who else has contingencies besides Batman! And now we kill two birds with one stone! TURN THE TABLES!"

The Three Jokers tried to charge Robert De Niro only to be stopped in their tracks and scattered as Robert De Niro fired his tommy gun at him.

"The only tables you'll be seeing is when you wait 'em in hell! I've wasted enougha my bullets and sweat on youse. Now, Joe Pesci, be a good boy and bring 'em to me! But alive!" Robert De Niro got a devilish gleam in his eyes as he released Joe Pesci and Joe Pesci charged like a pitbull going for the balls at the Jokers.

"Run, my friends! I will hold him off for you!" Ledger Joker heroically swore as he pulled out his knife.

As Nicholson and Phoenix Joker ran away, Ledger Joker stood his ground against the menacing Joe Pesci who was huffing and puffing like a steaming bull.

"You know how I got these scars?" Ledger Joker did fancy knife tricks before slicing the thin air with a menacing aura.

"No… but I know how you got these." Joe Pesci, not intimidated in the slightest, then took a deep breath. He then did some fancy hand motions and signs. "LION-O JUTSU!"

Upon shouting that, Joe Pesci was enshrouded in smoke. He seemed to vanish and all seemed still, and Ledger Joker looked forward in uncertainty. But then a shiver ran down his spine as he heard growling. Inhuman growling. And the panting of a beast. In a spilt second before he could react, the smoke parted, revealing that Joe Pesci had transformed into a lion!

Joe Pesci then sprang forward, pouncing onto Ledger Joker.

"EEEEYAAAAAGH!" Ledger Joker screamed as Joe Pesci proceeded to maul him.

While this was happening, the other two Jokers reached the bottom of the skyscraper and the sweet open freedom of outside, but just where in the whole of sweet open freedom would they be free from the wrath of Robert De Niro?

"Well got any more bright ideas, you fuck-up?" Nicholson Joker smacked Phoenix Joker on the back of his head while they were running.

"SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO THINK STOP PRESSURING ME." Whined Phoenix Joker.

"Stupid noob! What were we thinking, making you the leader over moi, the veteran gamer? I've been gaming before you were even a sperm in your daddy's dick!" Nicholson Joker grumbled but before they could argue more a Purple Lamborghini pulled up and screeched to a halt.

"Come with me if you want to live!" Leto Joker squealed as he rolled down the window to reveal that he was miraculously alive after the helicopter crash with nary a scratch on him.

"Drive anywhere but here, ya stupid Joker!" Nicholson Joker said bossily.

As the Jokers piled into the Purple Lamborghini, Robert De Niro ran out after them onto the street with the beaten and bloodied Ledger Joker at his mercy. He threw Ledger Joker onto his knees.

As Phoenix Joker looked back and watched, Robert De Niro reached behind him and pulled out a baseball bat, shiny new.

"You know, I may just be an actor who plays fictional characters, but I still relate to some of 'em." Robert De Niro said with a grand speech as he straddled the shuddering Ledger Joker's cheeks. "Take Al Capone, who I portrayed in Brian De Palma's historical Prohibition-era epic The Untouchables. There's nothing we both love to do to unwind when troubled by troublemakers than a good 'ol-fashioned all-American game of…"

With a mighty swing, Robert De Niro took off Ledger Joker's head.

"….BASEBALL!"

Like a home run grand slam heading out of the stadium, Ledger Joker's decapitated head smashed into the back window of the Purple Lamborghini. His jaw fell off while the rest of the head slowly slid off leaving behind an oily trail of blood on the window.

"Oh my god Robert De Niro killed Heath Ledger Joker!" Wailed Phoenix Joker in distress.

"Shite shite shite shite!" Leto Joker cried as he continued driving away as fast as he could. He hit the back window wipers, smudging the blood of Ledger Joker.

"Well this operation has been a real home run, hasn't it?" Nicholson Joker spat. "Next time you kids wanna do something, why don't you let someone with experience do it?"

"Shut up, boomer." The other two Jokers spat back, but without much conviction in the ire behind their words for the loss of their comrade was already weighing down upon their souls with great heaviness.

As the Purple Lamborghini drove out of sight, Robert De Niro kicked the headless corpse of Heath Ledger's Joker aside to the sewer drain. Martin Scorsese and Joe Pesci then joined him.

"They'll be back, Robert." Martin Scorsese warns. "Weeds always do grow back when you pull em all out."

"You shoulda lemme eat em. Straight to the bone!" Joe Pesci smacked his lips.

"Ah, but where would the fun be in that? The Joker does not fear death. His punishment must be more severe." Robert De Niro said as he straightened out of shirt and wiped the blood off his baseball bat. "Only when he truly understands the depth of his pathetic being shall I allow him to die."

"Well as long as we're all here, why don't we do the thing?" Joe Pesci suddenly remembered.

"Of course! When else will we get a better opportunity then now?" Robert De Niro snapped his fingers. He, Martin Scorsese, and Joe Pesci all huddled up and got ready to make an announcement to the reader.

"Don't forget to watch my new movie, _The Irishman_! It stars these two fine gentlemen, alongside a whole pasta market's worth of talent! Coming soon to a Netflix near you!" Martin Scorsese said as Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro did two thumbs ups right next to him.

* * *

The Jokers were returning to their home base. As the Purple Lamborghini pulled up to a stop and they got out, their apartment suddenly exploded.

"Nooooooo!" Leto Joker fell to his knees. "ALL OUR VIDEO GAMES WERE IN THERE!"

"Not my video games! TAKE MY LIFE INSTEAD, DAMN YOU BATMAN!" Nicholson Joker shook his fists in a rage.

"Hey, what's that?" Phoenix Joker pointed out.

All around them playing cards with the Joker on them were raining down. A sick final flourish of derange-o frosting on this warped dessert cake the perpetrator of this brazen attack had served upon them.

YOUR MOVE, JOKERS – XOXO, RDN was signed to the back of all the cards.

"That fiend! He took our lifeblood from us, our reason for living, in one fell swoop!" Leto Joker moaned.

"It's not over yet! We must regroup! Get stronger! Surely we are not the only Jokers in this crazy world, with a grudge against ivory tower elite Hollywood liberals!" Nicholson Joker pointed out, seeing an opportunity to steal leadership from Phoenix Joker.

"C'mon, l know a fine ass ho. She lives in my old apartment building. I'm sure she'll be cool with us crashing. I break into her place all the time." Phoenix Joker remembered.

The Jokers drove to his old apartment building and went up to his floor. However as they got to his floor and the elevator door opened up, the medical coroner and his assistants were wheeling in a stretcher topped with a body bag. Something was not right, and Phoenix Joker suddenly got bad vibes.

"Hey Joker, is something the matter?" The coroner asked, noticing that Joaquin Phoenix's Joker was unnerved by the body bag.

"Can I see who that is?" Phoenix Joker asked.

"Sure." The coroner unzipped the bag, and Phoenix Joker could only suppress his howl of despair as he saw that it was the fine ass ho, the black woman from Deadpool 2.

"Who did this? WHO COULD'VE SNUFFED OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL NUBIAN QUEEN LIKE SHE WAS BUT A CANDLE IN THE WIND?" Phoenix Joker demanded to know.

"Oh, someone called the cops on account of a suspicious colored lassie squattin' round these parts. Turned out it was her own apartment she was in, but we didn't find that out till Officer Gordon had already kicked down the door and shot her first thing."

"You just shot her? Without asking questions or anything like that?" Phoenix Joker was dumbfounded.

"Well, she was black. Standard operation procedure for cops all around the nation. Now if you excuse me, I gotta get this stiff to the morgue!" The coroner shooed the Jokers off, and Phoenix Joker could only watch dumbstruck, horrified as the elevator doors shut. As the doors closed, so did a possible branch of his life for good. And unlike video games, there was no quick save quick loading for a handy dandy doover.

"NOOOOOOOOO! MY SOPHIEEEEE!" Phoenix Joker let out an agonized wail, like his dick had just fallen in a box of heated needles.

(Sophie is the name of the character that the black lady from Deadpool 2 plays in the Joker movie)

"Jeez bro, I just dumped by my lifelong GF cause all I ever did was play video games instead of being there for her and even I didn't cry as hard as you are for some girl you didn't even get outta the locker rooms with." Leto Joker shrugged.

(Author's Note – to learn what Harley Quinn is up to while all this is happening, be sure to catch the Birds of Prey movie coming out February 2020. I am not being paid by the Warner Brothers to write this)

"But I coulda! I coulda slammed myself all the way outta the stadium with her! Sometimes the loss of a chance is as great as losing something tangible!" Phoenix Joker wept.

"It's better this way. Rutting with the Negroes takes you down paths best untaken." Said Nicholson Joker with sudden shocking bigotry.

"WHAAAAAT." The other two Jokers spat out their tea at the sound of hate speech.

"How do you think America got to the state that it is today? Our country divided and in shambles, every day sinking further into the murk of the abyss? IT IS BECAUSE WE GAVE NON-WHITE PEOPLE RIGHTS AND BEGAN REPRODUCING WITH THEM, THUS DILUTING OUR ALL-AMERICAN GENEPOOL." Nicholson Joker's eyebrows twitched as his fists clenched so deeply they drew blood. As he said this, Nicholson's Joker put on shades and a red MAGA ball-cap.

"Oh no, he really is a boomer!" Leto Joker gasped, horrified.

"Every time I see one of them… colored fellas… havin' a BBQ in the park or listening to music too loud or just existing I make sure to pull out my handy dandy smartphone and dial 911! Someone's gotta stop them from committing crimes and lowering the property value!" Nicholson Joker ranted. "In fact, just this morning, while I was walking past this building, I saw some colored woman and I hit that emergency dial to the Gee-Cee-Pee-Dee! So what if she could've been shot? Maybe if these colored fellas don't wanna get shot, they should stop committing so many crimes! Then see what happens!"

A light bulb then went off in Phoenix Joker's head. It then exploded with a furious supernova of rage.

"IT WAS YOU! YOU KILLED HER!" Phoenix Joker screamed at Nicholson Joker before kicking him in the nutsack by surprise, which is never not funny. "You'll pay, Joker!"

"Wait if you hurt me you are just as bad as me!" Nicholson Joker pleaded as Phoenix Joker pulled out his gun. "Why don't you just write a sternly worded Twitter thread about this encounter? After all, the pen is mightier than the sword-"

"Uh, guys, maybe we shouldn't be fighting. We should just take deep breaths and calm down! Find something, like um, common ground or compromise in the, er, center! Civility, remember?" Leto Joker pleaded but his words fell on deaf ears.

"That is the dumbest logic I have ever heard. Trying to appeal to a bigot's better nature through civility and compromise is futile, because they have none! We have to punch racists! AND THEN SOME." Phoenix Joker shot Nicholson Joker several times and then stabbed him in the bullet holes with his knife.

"What are you doing? He may be a racist boomer, but he's still our friend!" Leto Joker screamed.

"No, he was our friend! But then we found out he was a racist jerkbag!" Phoenix Joker plunged his knife into the side of Nicholson Joker's throat. As the life slowly drained from his fellow Joker's eye, Phoenix met his dying gaze with the coldest of heartless stares, holding the grip of his knife firm in his hands.

"All I have are negative thoughts, but at least the thought of ridding the world of one more racist brings me a warm fuzzy feeling inside." Said Phoenix Joker as he flung his arm to the side sharply, tearing out the throat of Jack Nicholson's Joker. To finish him off by adding insult to injury, Phoenix Joker reached into Nicholson Joker's pocket and pulled out that really really long gun he had used to shoot down Batman's plane in the first Burton Batman movie. And he stuck the barrel of that gun where the sun didn't shine, and it was so long it went out of the other end through Nicholson Joker's mouth. Blood gurgled and splurted like a runaway Slurpee machine out of both his cut throat and the gunbarrel lodged in him.

"Oh my god, you just killed Jack Nicholson's Joker!" Leto's Joker gapped as blood pooled from Nicholson Joker as his body collapsed.

"Yeah, I did. And I had to do it. We may be homicidal, insane mass-murdering clowns but at least we ain't racists. We gamers may be the only truly persecuted minority of these modern times, but we're no better if we sink to the level of the hatemongers of old." Phoenix Joker said with no regrets, picked the body of the fallen Joker up and walked to the stairs before tossing the corpse down them.

Phoenix Joker then went to Sophie's apartment, which was blocked off with yellow crime scene tape. With the cry of the hateful damned, he wrenched the tape apart and stepped into the apartment of his obsession. He glanced sadly at the two chalk outlines around red blotches on the carpet, one of a woman and the other of a child, and set his eyes towards the couch.

"Now what, bro? We're two Jokers down! If this was strip poker, Batman would be drivin' off in his Batmobile with everything, including our birthday suits!" Leto Joker shook his head, while Phoenix Joker plopped himself down on the couch. Leto Joker went to the fridge, which to his delight, did have some grape soda in it. He took two bottles and joined his fellow last Joker standing. "How we gonna make society our Harley Quinn, just the two of us?"

"Look on the bright side. Smaller party, more loot to split between us when we finally do take down this Batman of yours." Phoenix Joker remarked thinking of the min-maxing benefits, as Leto Joker tossed him one of the grape sodas. "Uh, they got any orange in there? Quenches my thirst better than rancid 'ol grape."

"Forget the soda! Forget the benefits! We ain't some kinda Suicide Squad, I wanna be able to live to see the day we take society down!" Leto Joker choked down some of his grape soda like it was battery acid.

"Fine, we'll just put out an ad on Craigslist. I'm sure we ain't the only Jokers out there in this crazy world." Phoenix Joker shrugged as he noticed a laptop on the coffee table in front of him.

He flipped it open, entered the word "PASSWORD123456" at the login, and instantly was accepted. Phoenix Joker then navigated to Craigslist, and wrote up a post asking for Jokers ASAP. He titled it, "GAMERS RISE UP" and hit post. Now, it was just a matter of waiting.

Phoenix Joker thought for a bit after this, and realized that for the kids reading this, he had some very important moral lessons to impart.

He took a seat back on the couch, pulled out a piece of cardboard, and wrote the words "Joker Says" on it. He put on some relaxing adult contemporary music.

"Hey kids, it's time for our very first Joker Says. Some days are definitely harder than others, and oh wienerschnitzel, was today was definitely one of those. But I think we also learned some very importan lessons along the way as well. First off, try to never do anything you haven't really prepared for! You may not be going to war against society like we are, but always be sure to put in the best amount of preparation for things like your tests and interviews! Don't ever try to wing it, cause chances are you'll end up in a tight pickle like we almost did!"

"Heath Ledger's Joker would still be with us if we practiced what we preached." Jared Leto's Joker sniffed.

"And two, it's NEVER OK to tolerate racists in your midst. Racism isn't cool, and even if you don't have racist beliefs, spewing them by being an ironic racist for the 'comedieez' doesn't make you funny. It just makes you a massive tool. Always call out racism whenever you can, and that goes for its equally abhorrent siblings sexism, nationalism, and classism too."

"Jack Nicholson's Joker learned that the hard way, and I'd be hard-pressed to say he didn't get what he deserved. Unrepentant racism is unforgivable, and not even God forgives. So then, what's the last big lesson for today, my fellow Joker?"

"Why do we fall, kids? So we can learn to get back up. For us Jokers, video games are a more vital lifeblood than air and water combined. All hope seemed lost when our apartment went up in flames with all our video games in it! What reason did we have to go on, to remain and suffer? But that's the thing about hope, kids. Hope ain't something tangible like your car keys, cause that'd be stupid. Hope is a state of being, a piece of mind, always inside of you. And on days like these when the whole world seems like it's against you, and that the sun will never shine your way again, hope is all you got. Find it, find that determination to get back up and live another day. You never know what tomorrow might bring. And never give up." Phoenix's Joker pulled his mouth into a smile wider than a pizza pie and laughed.

Leto Joker, moved to tears by the speech, applauded as Phoenix Joker set the Joker Says sign down. Phoenix Joker then reached under the couch, felt around, and pulled out a Nintendo Switch.

"The Holy Grail!" Leto Joker cried.

"And here's where we get back up." Phoenix Joker hooked the Switch up to the TV. Since Sophie was dead she wouldn't be needing any of this stuff anymore, and even though she didn't know who Joker was in life, he was certain she would be happy for him to take all of it over.

"It's game-time." Said the Jokers. They high-fived and clinked their soda bottles together as they began to pass the time until their call for aid was answered, cheering themselves up with a good 'ol game of Super Smash Bros.


	4. Chapter 4 - Gaming Recruitment Drive!

Chapter Four – Gamer Recruitment Drive!

The Jokers were having so much fun playing Super Smash Bros. that what had started off as a quickie pick up and play had evolved into a full-blown all-night smashathon that had lasted into these wee morning hours. Empty cans and bags of gamer food like Mountain Dew and Spicy Nacho Doritos were strewn about everywhere, and more were being cracked open by the minute.

"Man sometimes I wish I could just put life on pause forever and just play video games till the day I die." Leto Joker reflected. "Second on my wishlist – Nintendo gives these Mii Fighters some Damaged DLC!"

"I hate to be that guy, but seriously, what is up with Damaged and all those other tats?" Phoenix Joker pointed out as they were selecting their fighters for a new Smash. "None of the other Jokers I met have those. They're… just well, tacky. Distracting. An eyesore. D'you need me to fish out the thesaurus?"

"Shaddup! It ain't just a phase! I ain't trying hard! You wanna see me try tryhard? FINAL DESTINATION THREE STOCK NO TIME NO ITEMS." Leto Joker challenged. "And I'm sure I'm no snowflake in Jokerland! There's gotta be dozens of us damaged just like me! DOZENS!"

Leto Joker then selected Meta Knight.

"And you say you ain't a tryhard." Phoenix Joker dissed him.

"STFU bro. Until a few days ago you didn't even know what a Meta Knight Top Tier was!" Leto Joker shot back as Phoenix Joker was trying to choose between Lucina, whose chest is only surpassed in flatness by this beer I'm drinking, and Ganondorf, who eats little kids without chewing.

Before he could, someone rang their doorbell.

"Who is it?" Leto Joker asked.

"I'm here about your Craigslist AD." Said a voice that sounded somewhat familiar to the Jokers.

"No way, could it be?" Asked Leto Joker with whispers to Phoenix Joker.

"All the way out here? It cannot be! But there is only one way to find out!" Phoenix Joker then opened the door to find a large orange man with blonde hair in a business suit wearing the red MAGA cap. It was President Donald Trump!

"President Donald Trump! What are you doing here?" The Jokers asked.

"My son Barron came across your ad on the cybers while looking around the cybers the other day! I say, I love your hating Robert De Niro agenda! That no good liberal elite hurted my feelings bigly too!" Trump explained.

"So Mr. President you wanna join the Joker Gang?" Leto Joker asked.

"Sorry, Jokers, I've love to but I got a busy golf– I mean, Presidenting, schedule lined up! But I can give you a little backing, straight from my presses at Mar-A-Lago. I present to you TRUMPY BUCKS." Trump showed the Jokers a briefcase filled with dollar notes of various denomination, with Trump's face replacing all the other lesser Presidents.

"Before you do anything, I gotta know something. This ain't dirty racist money I'm taking off you, am I?" Phoenix Joker demanded.

"Of course not!" The President laughed. Trump then pulled out a Taco Bell Cheesy Gordita Crunch and a Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Down from his pants, and took one bite out of each.

"MMM MMM MMM I LOVE MEXICANS AND BLACKS. ME RACISM IS FAKE AND TASTY NEWS." Through muffled chewing, Trump proclaimed.

"Hmm, I believe you." Phoenix Joker said without questioning him.

"You'll keep Batman off our backs as well, won't you?" Leto Joker begged.

"Batman? Batman's just a Chinese Democratic Witch Hunt Hoax! Bankrolled by Crooked Hillary, Nervous Nancy, and Derange-O Barry! Very corrupt! I got just the fix for that punk." Trump then took two Trumpy Bear Space Force badges out of his pocket and pinned them on The Jokers. "Here, you're officially part of my Deputized Americommmando Squad. Anything you do gets my A-fficial Presidential Pardon Me! Batman can't grab you by the pussy while you've got this on you. Very cool!"

"Wow! Cool!" The two Jokers excitedly felt their new badges as Trump walked out of the apartment building farting the whole time.

"He really is making America great again." Phoenix Joker gushed in admiration.

* * *

News traveled fast in Gotham town that The Jokers suddenly had money and soon every person of a never-do-well intent was lining up around the block at the chance to become part of the Joker Gang.

"Holy Hannah in Hell, the Internet works speedier than Gonzales!" Phoenix Joker exclaimed as he and Leto Joker set up an interviewer's table.

"So why do you wanna join Joker Gang?" Leto Joker asked to their first interview subject, a shifty looking blond man in a black hat and a purple leather jacket.

"I'm Bob the Goon. I don't really wanna be a Joker like youse, but ya see... I... I... I used to be Jack Nicholson Joker's Number One Goon, but then you killed him! I'm a Goon without a Supervillain thanks to you. So um…" Bob the Goon barely choked down his grief. "…make me your Bob the Goon? I need a Joker in my life or I might as well be a joke myself!"

"Sure. We'll start you doing trash sweeping. Maybe if you work hard we can promote you to toilets and urinals in a few months. And work hard enough and you might just be manager one day!" Said Phoenix Joker, shrugging. Leto Joker then pulled out some paperwork and Bob the Goon signed it. The Jokers then tossed a broom and dustpan into his hands, and emptied the contents of their wastebacket in front of him.

Like a slave, Bob the Goon then started cleaning.

A cocky, egomaniacal looking man in a green suit patterned head to toe in question marks then sauntered in from the line.

"Greetings, Joker! I am the Riddler, emissary of riddles - the most sophisticated form of joke there is! Far from the simpleton slapstick and crude stand-up that is your blessed, deformed forte I am sure!" The Riddler showboated. "My ultimatum is simple! Make me, The Riddler, the new head of Joker Gang! And rename it Riddler Gang! I will take it to greatness that your feebleminded mind couldn't even dream of!"

"Nah. What good is a joke if nobody but a select few get it. That ain't joking, that's gatekeeping. And that's no good." Phoenix Joker retorted, jotting down this later for the next installment of Joker Says.

"You would turn me, The Riddler, down? HOW DARE YOU? MY SHITS ARE SMARTER THAN YOUR WHOLE FAMILY TREE." The Riddler pulled out his question mark cane, marking a challenge.

"Yo, Riddler. Riddle me this. What's green and stupid, not as cool as The Joker, and about to turn red all over?" Before The Riddler could answer, Leto Joker took out a submachine gun and sprayed the Riddler full of bullets.

"RED DEAD RIDDLER, BITCHOLA!" Phoenix Joker threw up some real gangsta shit signs.

"That's for making me collect all your Riddler trophies for FOUR STRAIGHT FUCKING GAMES." Leto Joker watchedThe Riddler stumble to a window and fall out of it backwards, landing with a splat on the pavement below.

Next up was another Joker, who seemed much more cartoony than they were. It was none other than Mark Hamill's Joker from the legendary Batman: The Animated Series strolling in like a total player with two Harley Quinns hanging off his arms.

"So I hear you boys are the new meat in the slaughterhouse." Hamill Joker whistled and smacked his lips. "The standards for what makes a Joker have gone way downhill, huh?"

"Shut the fuck up, Mark Hamill's Joker. So what if you're the best and you'll never be surpassed by any Joker real or unreal? We deserve the right to joke, too!" Leto Joker defended himself.

"Oh go damage yourself. You're no real Joker, you're just a stupid poo-poo head from a stupid band with stupid tattoos. You're stuuuuupid, Jared Leto. All it takes is one bad day to drive a man insane, and likewise, just one bad Joker to ruin my rep by association. I'm taking charge of this outfit. Show you Jokers how it's really done." Hamill Joker was about to take charge of things when he felt a twinge of pain.

"What the?" Hamill Joker looked down and saw the eraser of a number two pencil sticking out of his gut. He was a cartoon, and he'd just been stabbed by eraser, the number one weakness of cartoons. And holding the pencil was Joaquin Phoenix's Joker.

"I don't care if you're the best Joker. I don't care if Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, voices you and the best they got to play us was that guy from diet My Chemical Romance and that dude who humped sand in that one movie! We deserve our chances to try to shine, to earn our places as men who laugh! And quite frankly, Mr. Shankly, your time is past. You're more nostalgia than people, and the only thing to do with the past is kill and bury it." Phoenix Joker proclaimed as he ripped the pencil out of Hamill Joker's gut and then grabbed the hand-animated Joker by the back of his neck.

He whispered in Hamill Joker's ears.

"Y'know, Hammy, before Heath Ledger Joker died at the start of the last chapter, in between Chapter Two and Three… he showed me a little magic trick!"

Phoenix Joker then slammed Hamill Joker's head really hard on the pencil, eraser-first.

"Voila! Pencil eraso!" Phoenix Joker tipped Hamill Joker's corpse away and it fell towards Lego Joker who was waltzing in unaware of the threat for his interview until it was too late, as a shadow fell over him.

"Egads!" Lego Joker screamed as Hamill Joker's corpse fell on him, killing him as well.

"Huh, you hear somethin'?" Phoenix Joker shrugged.

"Damn, Phoenix, you are the Joker Killing Joke!" Leto Joker purred and chuckled at his own bad joke.

"Anymore Jokers left?" Phoenix Joker called out. On cue, an older looking Joker grinning like a madman boogied in shaking a pair of Maracas loaded with jumping beans. Most curiously, this Joker seemed to have a mustache that he had tried to obscure by painting over it, but once you realized the truth you could never unsee it.

"Hola amigos! You young bucks weren't really gonna pull this off without the Grandpappy of all Jokers, would ya?" This Joker was none other than Cesar Romero's Joker! "Hoo hoo hoo, are we gonna have a gay old time or what? We gonna make Batman pull some boners today?"

"Gross!" Leto Joker nearly retched at the thought.

"Calm down, bro. I think he's referring to the original meanings of those words. No boners today, I think we are just gonna go get a bunch of guys and then go kill Robert De Niro."

"What the hey? Killin' people? Oh no, I'm not down with that at all!" Romero Joker protested. "Killin' ain't humorous, that is serious as all heck! Whatever happened to the good 'ol prankster power hour? Why don't we just make him sit on a whoopee cushion? Or ooh ooh, trick him into wearing socks with sandals? He'll never go out in public again!"

"Humor's subjective. Who are you to decide what's funny or not, grandpa?"

"Yeah, kneeslappers are so passé. I'm well, more into, kneesmashers." Leto Joker chuckled.

"C'mon, kids, why so serious?" Romero Joker waved his arms in confused frustration. "Back in my day, we didn't kill our do-gooding enemies! We challenged 'em to surf-offs and dance-offs! Crime for me is all in good fun, like a game of tennis with cops and robbers! But you boys with your anger at society and your perpetual bloodshed… I take a look at what kind of Jokers you are… and it's just so tragic."

"I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it's a fucking comedy." Phoenix Joker shrugged.

"Watch the language, youngster! Did your momma never wash your mouth out with soap?" Romero Joker wagged a chiding finger.

"My mother's dead. And I killed her. HEE HOOO HEEEE HAAAAW HOO HAAAA HAAA HAAAA." Phoenix Joker burst into uncontrollable, maniacal laughter, pitching over in a gutbusting fit. Romero Joker took one final look at the Jokers of today, and noped out.

"If this is what the Joker means today, I want no part of it! I'm off ta Albuquerque! Just wait till I tell my Batman about you creeps!" Romero Joker gagged and dashed out of the room.

* * *

A couple hours later, The Jokers had gone through all their applicants. And to their dismay, had found no one suitable to take up the role of the Third Joker.

"Shit. A lotta fucks can talk the talk, but are just plain crippled when it comes to walking the walk." Leto Joker shook his head as an irate Martha-looking woman with a glasgow smile stormed out of the room following her rejection. He put his tattooed hand on his mouth, upside down this time so it looked like it was frowning. "I'd laugh if it weren't so fucking pathetic."

"Um, what about me? I know they never called me Joker in my series bu-" Asked Cameron Monaghan's Joker from the Gotham TV show, poking his head in.

"Piss off! Gotham sucks! That show should never have made it to pilot!" Leto Joker rudely brushed him off.

"Yeah, yeah. At least I wasn't in Suicide Squad." Monaghan Joker grumbled as he slumped away. As he walked away, in walked The Joker from the forgotten CW superhero show, Birds of Prey.

"Hey, I know was just a cameo in my series but-" This Joker opened his mouth.

"Not in a million years!" With anything they could get their hands on that wasn't vital, the Jokers threw shit at him unil this Joker fled back into the halls of forgotten comic media obscurity.

"Damn it. We're back at square one. Just two of us with nothing but our video games against the world." Leto Joker observed.

"And these Trumpydollars, don't forget." Phoenix Joker hoisted up the briefcase Trump had given them.

"Well, wanna get something to eat until we can think of Plan B? Now that Trump has given us these Trumpy Bucks, now we can buy a meal like an honest citizen."

"Sounds like a plan. Let's go to McDonald's."

"Ba-da-ba-duh-duh, I'm lovin' it." Leto Joker sing the Mickey D's jingle as the two Jokers waltzed to the nearest McDonald's.

* * *

A couple minutes later the Jokers were getting back to their apartment with their McDonald's. Leto Joker had gotten two Big Macs and twenty McNuggets, with an order of large fries and a medium Coke Zero, and a large tub of Szechuan Sauce. Phoenix Joker meanwhile was readying to assemble his order of McDoubles and McChickens into the Double McGangBang, with an M&M's McFlurry to go on the side.

Their clothes and McDonalds bags were covered in fresh blood, none of it theirs.

"Holy crapola, I can't believe we just had to kill that entire restaurant." Leto Joker panted before sipping his Coke.

"Yeah, who knew that Trumpy Bucks weren't actual currency? But we had no real moolah, and I sure as heck wasn't walkin' back McEmptyhanded without a fight." Phoenix Joker swirled his McFlurry a bit. "Pity that we had to shoot the employee who made us all this, but no McWitnesses."

"I wonder, did the President just lie to us? Swindle us like a pair of easily impressed morons? Trick us into thinking we had his blessing and protection to eliminate his enemies, setting us up for the wolves as soon as we finished? Who could support and vote for such a transparently two-faced politician?" The two Jokers paused, looked at the camera, then looked at each other again. "No way! He's the most honest Prez since Honest Abe!"

As they neared their apartment door, the Jokers saw a most curious sight. They had forgotten to take down the sign next to their apartment that said "Joker Gang Hiring Fair" and waiting at the head of the otherwise empty line was an average, demure looking black-haired Asian teenager wearing a black jacket, black pants, and glasses.

"Uh, you didn't order any Chinese takeout did you?" Leto Joker whispered to Phoenix Joker.

"Hell no. I refuse to eat any Chinaman's fixings in protest against the brutal anti-Democratic totalitarian regime of the People's Republic of China." Phoenix Joker explained. "Still, I'm hoping you ordered some sushi, cause that would be nice."

"Hello! My name is Ak- I mean, Amamiya Ren!" Said the Asian teenager in practiced English. "Is this the tryouts for the Joker Gang?"

"Mama-mia What? Uh, we're actually closed. Too many Jokers in this world just can't cut the mustard." Leto Joker made the no-no sign.

"Oh really? Such a pity, I have travelled all the way from Japan to become a part of the Joker Gang! I am the Joker of Japan, the legendary Phantom Thief!" Ren Amamiya revealed.

"Never heard of 'em! You don't even look like a real Joker, too!" Leto Joker once again pulled out his proper Joker qualification chart. "Where's your suit, your make-up, your laugh?"

"Oh, you judging me by the standards of you American Jokers? I need to tattoo something stupid on my head before you think of me as a Joker? It does not occur to you that we do things differently for Jokers in Nippon? I too am persistently troubled by a petulant do-gooding yet totally handsome and genius detective! Is that not enough? You some prejudiced racists, huh?" Ren Amamiya went blunt and to the point.

"Of course not! I love the Japanese! Anime and manga are like my bread and butter!" Leto Joker frantically swore.

"No way Jose! Nothing of the sort!" Phoenix Joker insisted defensively. "I would sooner go sane and become a functioning proud member of Society than ever have a racist bone in my body! And just to prove it, we'll make you a member of Joker Gang right now! No more interviews or tests required!"

The Jokers then sat down at their table to feast on their McDonald's.

"So we got off on the wrong foot, Joker-san." Leto Joker apologized. "How about I split my McNuggets with you?"

"I appreciate the gesture, but I got myself covered. I too picked up some take-out before I took the plane from Tokyo to Gotham." Ren Amamiya Joker reached into his bag and pulled out a fast food bag labeled "BIG BANG BURGER."

"Heh heh heh… bang." Leto Joker giggled like a schoolgirl.

As the Jokers ate, Ren Amamiya raised a question.

"So I have heard all about your struggle with society, and in particular this Hollywood bigshot, Robert De Niro. Just what is your plan to deal with him?"

"Oh, I figured we would just drive over to his house and shoot him as he's stepping out to get the morning paper. It'll probably go better than the last time we tried, in the last chapter." Phoenix Joker explained as he took a bite outta his McGangBang, but Ren Amamiya shook his head and made a sharp tsking-sound.

"No, no, no. You kill him, society will just replace him with another. Or like a hydra, with two. You'll make no gains in your war that way. You'll just fight forever and you cannot win a war of attrition against society."

"So then what do you propose, noob?" Leto Joker slurped down some Coke as he swam some McNuggets in Szechuan Sauce like a salsa shark.

"Simple. Behold." Ren Amamiya then pulled out his Samsung phone and brought up a mysterious looking app on the screen.

A menacing, all-knowing black eye against a red backdrop stared back at the Jokers, who glanced at it pensively.

"What… what is that?"

"You'll never defeat society in this universe alone. The house is simply stacked against you. But it's a different story in…" Ren Amamiya paused for dramatic effect, cockily adjusting his glasses. "…The Metaverse."


	5. Chapter 5 - The Endgame Begins

Chapter Four – Endgame: Into the Metaverse!

It was the next morning following one rock and rolling night of hardcore video gaming.

Phoenix Joker awoke to find Ren Amamiya, the Japanese lad who claimed to be the Joker of Japan, already up and about. Penetrating a stack of pancakes, a veritable Mt. Everest of sugar and flour, with his fork.

"Ahh, I see that you are awake, Joker-san. Do you also like pancakes?" Ren mused admirably. "Loath as I am to admit, you cannot find pancakes of this like anywhere in Japan. Delicious, delicious pancakes."

Ren Amamiya sounded almost like a deranged pancake cultist, the way he spoke about them.

Phoenix Joker felt too hungover to really care much about the intricacies of breakfast foods across the globe.

"Ugh, my head. Quick, get me a Monster." Phoenix Joker moaned.

"Monster Energy Drink? Ah-ha, surely you as a gamer can aim to do better than that for your morning jolt." Ren rubbed his palms, before taking out a notecard from his pocket. He read it. "I have been trained… in the… culinary arts. Shall I prepare for you coffee and curry? The specialties of LeBlanc… far from home, or for you, I suppose at your home."

"I don't care. Just gimme somethin' that'll get me runnin."

"Your wish is my command, Joker-san." Ren got up and went to the kitchen. "Now let's see what we got."

* * *

A few minutes later, Ren plopped down a cup filled with a deep black liquid in front of Phoenix Joker. "I am afraid your fridge had no meats in it so I had to run out to the local establishment, the Chicken-Filly, I believe it was called to improvise a bit." Ren slid a plate of white rice and Chik-Fil-A chicken nuggets in curry sauce.

Phoenix Joker then tried the foodstuffs.

"Blech! This coffee is just plain rancid! What'd you do, use somma dat… what does Leto call it, use Joker Venom insteada water? Worse than soymilk!"

He then tried the curry.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaah! It burns! I've been constantly burned by society's persecution all my life for being a gamer, and not once did it ever burn as bad as this curry! Who the Jaspering Jenkin Jinkies taught you how to cook and brew a pot?"

"I followed my heart…" Ren shrugged. And to himself he whispered. "Shit, how does he in the shop make it so good when I follow these same directions to a T? HOW?"

"Well, that's why your heart was cut out to be a Joker, not a chef. Say… why you wanna be a Joker, anyhow? Kid like you oughtta still be in school, hanging out with friends and studying for your future."

"Just like you, I realized one day that I was living in a society and society had it out for me. So I had it with society! No longer could I keep up this charade of normality, when truly within me beat the unbreakable warrior's heart of a gamer!" The Japanese teenager proclaimed. He then looked like a sudden thought had come over him.

"Say…" Ren glanced at Phoenix Joker. "I wasn't always a Joker, and neither were you I am deducing."

"What are you getting at?" Phoenix Joker narrowed his gaze, suspicious.

"What did you call yourself, before all this Joker business?" Ren asked in an utterly innocuous manner.

"Oh. Arthur Fleck." Phoenix Joker shrugged.

"Ah, I can see why you'd abandon that name for Joker."

"Speak for yourself, Ren Mamamia." And they laughed.

"I hear laughter. And it ain't me. Ha ha ha. Now it is me!" Leto Joker stumbled onto the table, hungover as all hell in some real gangsta lookin' purple pajammies without a shirt. He twisted his nipples and laughed like a hyena drunk on helium, hopping onto the table. Leto Joker then squatted and began taking scoops of curry with his hands, shoveling them into his maw.

"Mmm mmm mmm! This curry is paingasmic! So tantalizingly h-o-t! It sears like Harley's squirtin' bush!" Leto Joker then downed the entire coffee pot like a waterfall, and soon coffee was dribbling down his bare chest.

"Man, these kinda moments make me glad that I'm a virgin. Whaddabout you?" Phoenix Joker motioned for Ren to lavish them with tales of his sexual exploits and conquests.

"I have a thing for older women. I lust for that pushover goody two sho- I mean, my lovely student council president at the moment. She's got a year on me, but honestly, not good enough. I'm just chasing her in hopes of getting closer to her big sister. The most foo- I mean, the most gorgeous lady of justice I've ever met." Ren elaborated, and he began rubbing his palms and smacking his lips. "I want them both to step on me barefoot where it hurts. Sometimes, when it's late at night and too hot and I can't sleep, I imagine them fighting over me. The boobie-shots, low-blows, hair-pulling kind of shenanigans. And then they tear off each others clothes and start making out, and I have a nice long… how do I put it? I release my Persona."

Ren had no idea that Phoenix Joker was secretly screening him for Chad tendencies. If he had chosen some different wording, like use the blatant Chad terminology date instead of the always-reliable gamer term lust, red flags would've been raised and alarms gone-a blaring.

"Speakin' of Personas… I can hardly believe what you told us the other night. A whole meta-verse, made from the desires of this universe? And that it is the tool to defeating society? It sounds too sci-fi happy crappy to believe, almost." Phoenix Joker used the opportunity to transition to the main topic at hand, while Leto Joker licked spilled coffee off his armpits and nipples like a housecat purring all the while.

"In my homeland, my Phantom Thieves and I made society our bitch stealing its hearts. Why should it be any different for America? Your Robert De Niro, like my own enemies, has a Palace ruled by his Shadow Self that houses his Treasure manifested from his distorted desires. It's a simple matter of breaking in to steal his Treasure, and with it, his heart."

"So why don't we just do it right now? Let's get this fucker Robbie over with so I can get back to playing video games all day." Leto Joker was doing a sexy dance routine on the table now.

"It is not that simple." Ren explained. "The treasure is normally an intangible, abstract thing. We would need to send a calling card."

"A calling what now?" Phoenix Joker was confused.

Ren reached into his pocket and took out a small red business card. A funny looking hat and mask illustration was on it.

"Robert De Niro must see us as a threat, his shadow self to believe that his treasure is in danger, for it to become material." Ren dumped some more exposition.

"But how the blazes are we gonna get this card to Robert De Niro? He's already killed Heath Ledger Joker, the greatest of us all. No way in blue Hawaiian hell are we gonna get close enough to slip him this without risking our own necks."

Ren laughed at the Joker's worry.

"Ah, it need not be as simple as a post card. After all, far more dramatic examples are just as effective as shaking men out of their apathy."

"Dramatic… hrmm…" Phoenix Joker rubbed his chin, trying to rack that noggin for inspiration.

At that moment, Leto Joker got the remote and hit the TV on. The news channel was playing, and the Jokers saw that it was the trial of Police Officer Jim Gordon, who had shot and killed Phoenix Joker's black neighbor Sophie whose abandoned apartment they were now squatting in. Black Lives Matter were there, making crowds and holding up signs in protest. Ren then whispered a suggestion into Phoenix Joker's ear.

"A-ha" He snapped his finger, the lightbulb at full brightness. "To me, my fellow Jokers! We are goin' on an adventure!"

"Can I come?" Bob the Goon asked as he sidled up with his broom, sweeping up the dust.

"Shut up and sweep, trash-master!" The Jokers smacked him, one by one. Bob the Goon then hung his head submissively and continued sweeping along as the Jokers filed out of the room.

* * *

The Jokers drove to the courthouse where Officer Gordon was being tried. Officer Gordon was a very sinister looking mustachioed ginger, puffing on a cigarette very smugly as he sat in the place in the courthouse where the accused sits.

"Officer Gordon what do you have the say for yourself?" The Judge asked.

"All reports that I shot an unarmed black person in their own home is blatant lies." Said Officer Gordon. "In fact they were armed. With their arms!"

Obviously doctored body-cam video footage of Sophie charging Officer Gordon with their arms as a weapon was then shown to everyone.

"After reviewing all evidence, I will ensure that Officer Gordon is not really guilty. He will be disciplined, of course. Disciplined with a paid vacation to the Caribbean and lucrative book deals about the horrid defamation attempt against his character!" The judge banged his gavel and announced. "And then his punishment will be finished when he returns with a promotion to Commissioner!"

The other cops in the audience, led by Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya, hooted and cheered.

"What the flipping fudge?" Asked all the Black Lives Matter activists in the courthouse as they shook their protest signs with anger. "That is not punishment, that is promotion!"

"Same thing, lol." The judge said as he held up the official American law thesaurus, where someone hastily added promotion to the synonyms of punishment for cops.

"Society doesn't care about black people!" Complained the Black Lives Matter leader.

"That makes us birds of a feather! Hello blacks, we are gamers! Your fellow persecuted minority of society!" Phoenix Joker, flanked by his fellows, kicked down the door.

"Holy shit! It's The Joker! Get him!" All the cops and the judge then ripped out Colt revolvers and began blasting at The Jokers.

"Ha ha we put all our stats into DEX! Your attacks have no effect on us!" The Jokers bragged as they used their buffed up agility to dance around every bullet like they were ballet masters and the cops had yet to master the hokey-pokey.

The cops and the judge then ran out of ammo.

"Hey how come no one brought any more ammo? That's so contrived and conveni" Harvey Bullock opened his mouth before a shot from Phoenix Joker turned his whole head into a burst jelly donut.

"Wait don't kill me! I am a token two-fer minority! Shoot me and you'll be hearing from the ACLU!" Renee Montoya begged as she pulled out a rainbow flag.

"Fine, you can go. I sure hope you enjoyed these years of serving the Man, you race and sex traitor." Spewed Phoenix Joker to the Hispanic Homosexual Honey as she scrammed out of the courthouse. Phoenix Joker and Leto Joker then gunned down all the cops and the judge akimbo style, leaving only Officer Gordon.

"Pew Pew!" Said Ren as he pranced behind them in all in the Shujin Academy uniform putting in a shot from a model gun into every corpse for good measure.

"Please Joker don't kill me I am not a racist. The cops are not racist. We cops are simply here to benevolently serve our communities colorblind!" Officer Gordon insisted not even bothering to hide his Aryan Brotherhood tattoos on his arms by rolling down his sleeves.

"Nah." The Phoenix Joker readied to shoot Jim Gordon when Ren tapped him on his shoulder.

"Joker-chan, a bullet would be too merciful. A true Phantom Thief punishment requires a touch more… irony." Ren reached into his pocket and pulled out a vintage looking sci-fi ray gun from the Multiverse labeled The Blackening. "As that mixed-breed slatte- I mean, angel Takamaki said to me one day - once you go black… you never go back."

Ren zapped Jim Gordon with the ray gun and to everyone's surprise, as laser rays dowsed him all over, he began turning black.

"Aaaaaagh! Help me Batman!" Gordon begged to Batman, who was slinking by outside the window, his chin under his cowl sparkling as the sunlight hit it.

"Sorry, Commish, but no can do. Alfred says all I do is beat up the mentally ill and poor minorities, and it's getting real bad for my image. So I'm letting all minorities commit crimes and get away with it from here on out. The Joker is a gamer and gamers are like both mentally ill and the minority group who have it roughest in America these days. It's not justice, but I'm sure it'll boost my likes among the Woke Kiddos." Batman shrugged and zipped away on his grappling hook apologetically.

"Uh, don't forget to support my, uh I mean, Robert Pattinson's new movie The Lighthouse in theaters now!" Batman called out as he faded away.

The Jokers then gagged Gordon after Ren finished turning him black, and tied him up. They tugged him over to the nearest police station and threw him on the steps, instantly setting off every officer insides' Negro Alarm. "Oh God a black person!" Said the cops, and they all ripped out their firearms and began firing wildly like lunatics at everything in sight.

"Thank you so much for delivering us the justice that the courts refused, Joker. The movies were right, all we need to solve racism is a special enlightened white savior. I can already hear the Academy Awards rolling in." The Black Lives Matter Leader shook the hands of the Jokers.

"Well, we're gonna need a small favor for this." Phoenix Joker revealed.

"Some real gangsta shits gonna go down." Leto Joker threw signs up.

"Count on it. We're all in the fight against The Man together, homie."

* * *

A couple hours later, Robert De Niro was in his penthouse reading the paper and smoking a pipe, when he got an aching to see what was happening outside. He strolled to the window and everything seemed normal at first for Gotham. Blimps and planes were crashing from the sky and a few buildings were on fire, par the course.

Then Robert De Niro looked down, dropping his paper and pipe in surprise.

"What da fug?" Robert De Niro exclaimed as he saw assembled below him like street performers doing art a bunch of Black Lives Matter People spelling out a sentence.

YOUR TREASURE IS LIKE YOUR ASS – WE'RE COMING FOR IT XOXO JOKER GANG

"Fuggin' kids dese days! Marvel and Star Wars movies must be rottin' dem brains!" Robert De Niro grumbled like an old person and went back to reading his paper and puffing his pipe.

Elsewhere as a song with synthesizers played (this is meant to be a tribute to the Beach Scene from Michael Mann's early masterpiece film Thief, available on blu-ray and dvd from wherever Criterion Collection products are sold) the Jokers were running through the city like madmen in jubilant celebration, high-faving and chest-bumping all the way to the riverside where they then switched to swim trunks and hopped in. In platonic male bonding, they splashed one another and wrestled in the surf. Though the hardest hill to climb was right around the corner, for now they could have this one brief moment of pure bliss.

* * *

"Well, did it work?" Phoenix Joker asked Ren back at the hideout. Ren had his feet out on the table and was wasting his time reading the Persona 5 pages on TVTropes on his phone.

Leto Joker was doing weights while Bob the Goon was passed out from overworked exhaustion. When Leto Joker was done weighting, he dropped his weights on Bob the Goon and Bob the Goon was so pooped he didn't even react or feel pain as the weights dented his rib cage.

"They say what about me?" Ren demanded, not noticing the inquiry that the Joker had made of him.

"Well, did it work?" Phoenix Joker repeated impatiently. That got Ren's attention.

"Even now, do you still doubt me? Even after I capitulated to your demands that I rename the Phantom Thieves Joker Gang? Fine…" Ren sighed and swapped to that mysterious looking app on his phone called Metaverse Navigator. "Looks like I'll have no choice but to show you myself."

Ren spoke into his phone like he was speaking to Siri. He spoke in Japanese, not English, but to Phoenix Joker what he said first sounded suspiciously like: "Arthur Freck." And then after that some typical Japanese he couldn't make out.

"Hey Ren…" He cut off Ren before the boy could finish, irritating the Japanese youth somewhat.

"Call me Joker. When we are working, it's all professional names and that."

"Hey, that's my line. But whatever, it sounded like you just said my BJ (before Joker, like BC is before Christ) name. Into your phone. Why?"

Ren chuckled.

"Aw, silly Yankee. I did not say your name. I said… Robert De Niro. His name in Japanese just sounds a lot like Arthur Fleck."

"Fine."

Ren then repeated the process of talking into his phone, finishing it this time. As soon as the last word left his mouth, a sudden strange feeling came over the Jokers. It was as if a wave of distortion had shimmered through the room. And then more waves came blasting in on repeat, with higher frequency. Phoenix Joker convulsed, his head feeling like it was stuck in a vice that was closing in.

"YAAAAAAAA." He screamed. His head was screaming at him. He feared he was going sane. The whole world seemed to melt around him.

"Huh. Don't know how you're feeling, but this reminding me of the time I ate acid off Harley's bush." Leto Joker shrugged, as Phoenix Joker choked down some rising vomit.

"Gaaaah! Gross! What is happening?" Phoenix Joker cried out.

"Life will change." Ren cryptically chuckled as he twiddled his fingers and finally unleashed his Joker laugh, delivering ominous chills that rushed down the spines of the other Jokers.

What was happening to his mind? All his senses?

Black and red. Red and black. Like lava lamps spinning in perpetuity. A bloated bag of popcorn about to blow. Standing on nothing.

The world as he knew it dissolved into colors. And then he followed.


	6. Chapter 6 - A Chad Incarnate

Chapter Six – A Chad Incarnate. A Gamer Doomed.

Author's Note: This chapter contains spoilers for a lot of stuff. Read on at your own peril.

After a nasty trip, Phoenix Joker came to. He'd expected to wake up in some kind of Alice in Wonderland hellscape, an American McGee-kinda Alice not the Disney version. But it was just his bedroom, in his apartment building, the way that he remembered it.

"What the blazes? Did someone roofie me? Where is that crazy frigger from Japan?" Phoenix Joker remarked as he saw that Ren Amamiya, the Joker of Japan, was nowhere in sight. He got to with an achy back, and then heard the noises of television.

Someone was watching a program, a show or movie with lots of cursing and guns and exploding. He heard familiar laughter. Slow, near mirthless, almost deadpan. His fellow Joker, Jared Leto Joker!

Phoenix Joker crept into the living room where the noises were coming from. He saw that Leto Joker was watching the Boondock Saints on TV and having a ball. Ren Amamiya was nowhere in sight.

"Ha ha ha fill 'er up! THERE WAS A FIREFIGGGGGHHHHT!" Leto Joker reenacted Willem Dafoe's iconic moment.

"Ugh I can't believe you like this movie so much. It's such a staple for chad fuckboys, an icon of toxic masculinity." Phoenix Joker criticized.

"C'mon bros, Boondock Saints is a righteous classic. It's nothin' but good harmless funs. You don't hear me trashing those weird artsy fartsy pretension machines you like to watch, like what was that one called? You Were Never Really Here? More like You Were Never Really A Good Movie! Haw haw!" Leto Joker made some fart noises with his elbow. "Joaquin Phoenix is such an overrated hack! Totally unlike the devilish sexy amazing and chameleonic Oscar winning, maestro musician boy-toy, Jared Leto. The Outsider on Netflix is totes KINO."

"I'm just sayin' maybe we oughtta be holdin' our movies to a higher standard than… mindless violence and the basest of humor. Like that cat scene in that fucking movie! Fuck was the point of that except stupid excess?" Phoenix Joker argued.

"You a snowflake Ess-Jay-Double You or somethin' now? We're gamers bro. Our standards are if as long as it ain't got mts or Epic Games Store exclusivity, everythin' goes and it ain't broke! Woop woop!" Leto Joker made thrusting motions as more people got shot on screen. "Besides, I didn't hear ya raisin' a stink when we went to see that weird fuckin' Lighthouse movie off-page in the last chapter and Edward Cullen spent what forever just slammin' a gull to guts."

"Well, for one – seagulls are fucking devil shit-factories on wings. They get what's comin' to 'em. And two – maybe I was too weirded out by Robert Pattinson beating off to his My Little Mermaid fantasies to notice the damn animal cruelty!"

"Oh, so you're against jerkin' off now? Jerkin' off's like a staple food for gamers! Ya can't live without it. Way better than havin' a real girlfriend, and more satisfying too! No need to worry about the Ess-Tee-Dees, like pregnancy, when all ya do is tickle the pickle!"

"I mean, I masturbate too. But masturbation should be something intimate, something private. Not something you put on the big screen for audiences all around the world to see! And why does he have to let er rip so much in one movie?"

"Captain Sparkleface beats his meat like a lightweight. Nickin' his fury twice is amateur hour stuff. Me, every day I'm pumpin' till I'm all outta milk. In the shower, in bed, at the movies, under the dinner table, when I'm playing Tekken! Fuck yeah, Masturbation Everywhere! Even in the car! Well, not when I'm drivin' cause that's dangerous but you bet your pasty ass I'm thinkin' real hard about it. You know… this talk's just given me a good idea."

"What?"

"If you're so scared of the idea of other men doin' it, why don't I help demystify it for you? Fellow Joker, let us take our big white pee-pees out and circular each other's L-sticks.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Jared Leto Jo"

Their enlightening conversation was interrupted as the door to the outside was kicked down.

"While you were wasting time, I secured a route to the treasure. So follow me if you want your revenge upon Robert De Niro and his enablers of Society." Ren Amamiya was standing there. But not the normal Ren that they had come to know these past few days. He was now wearing a pretty swaggy white mask, a cool black overcoat over a black vest and pants, twirling a lean and mean stiletto in gloved red hands.

"Woah Ren what's up with that outfit? It's so fire!" Phoenix Joker complimented.

"Eh, needs a bit more green and purple." Leto Joker shrugged.

"Like I said in the last chapter, when we're working, call me Joker." Joker ordered. "Now, time's a wastin'. I took care of many, but there still are a lethal amount of shadows lurking about. The palace security is on high alert and we need to get this done before the ruler can formulate a counterattack."

"Yeah. It's to finish that fucker. And all of society." Phoenix Joker and Leto Joker nodded. Joker flashed them a thumbs up and headed out, and as they followed him, Phoenix Joker's foot hit something on the floor.

He looked and saw it was a cardboard box with black sharpie writing something in Japanese on it. 明智 吾郎 のもの was what it read. Too bad he couldn't read Japanese, but he figured it was what Ren Amamiya looked like in Japanese. His foot had knocked it open a bit, spilling out some of its contents. A funny looking red mask with a real long nose, as well as a toy… lightsaber? Huh, was Ren there a Star Wars geek or something? Now those Star Wars kids were the real clowns… the fanboys that all the other fanboys were allowed to make pick on, steal lunch money from, and shove into lockers.

Well, at least they weren't comic books fans. Now those were real asshats here. They were so toxic they had to be handled by pros with gloves and stuff.

And Star Wars did occasionally make good video games too, classics like KOTOR 2, Battlefront 2 (the good one) and Lego Stars Wars The Complete Saga. Phoenix Joker had high hopes for Fallen Order, which comes out this month. Titanfall 2 was a damn fine shooter and he had high hopes for Respawn's take on a galaxy far far away. And with the return of EA games to the Steam store with Fallen Order, could this be the start of the glorious counterattack that would take down the villainy of the Epic Games Store at last?

Phoenix Joker decided to think nothing of this box's strange insides and followed his pals on the way to victory.

* * *

"For a meta-verse, it sure looks like a normal verse. I mean, this is just my apartment building. Not even a cheap jump scare like a Resident Evil dog jumping through windows has happened yet." Phoenix Joker complained as they got out of the elevator and walked to the door to outside.

"Hold your horses. You Americans sure are impatience embodied. What we are in is a safe house. Where the cognition of the Palace Ruler is weak and the true world seeps through. But as you can see…" Joker kicked the door down and revealed the Metaverse in its true glory. "…elsewhere is a different story."

"No way." Phoenix Joker's jaw dropped. "What happened to the normal outside?"

"Huh. I didn't smoke my blunt but I'm still seeing things." Leto Joker reached into his pants and pulled out his blunt to check that it was still there.

Gotham City had been replaced by an insane asylum. Not just any insane asylum. Arkham Asylum. Its streets and buildings had all been changed into Arkham's twisted corridors and padded cells of insanity.

"This is how Robert De Niro truly sees Gotham City. An asylum where he rules over its inmates, the entire population, like an unchallenged tyrant!" Joker proclaimed.

At that moment, a curious looking creature toddled up to them. It was a diminutive, anthropomorphic blue-eyed cat looking thing wearing a yellow scarf and a big black mask over its kitty ears. Joker sighed as he saw the cat thing.

"Egads! A monster cat!" Leto Joker cried out.

"I knew I sensed a disturbance in the Metaverse! Alright! Stop right there… you're caught red-hande- Joker?!" The cat thing stopped in its track as it seemingly recognized Joker. Its blue eyes widened in shock, before narrowing in suspicion as it perused Joker a bit more. "Waitasecond! You're not- you're-!"

"It's not just a monster cat… A TALKING CAT!?" Phoenix Joker exclaimed.

"You." Joker hissed.

"You." The cat thing hissed back. It then addressed the other Jokers, hopping up and down and swishing its tail about with frantic urgency. "Listen, I don't know who you are or what he told you, but don't trust him! He's actua"

Joker shot his gun into the air to shut the cat thing up.

"Shut up shut up shut up shut up you furry freak!"

"Don't bet on it, you mad crow! I won't let you hurt these innocents you've roped into your sick games! I'll stop you for good!" The cat thing pulled out a slingshot and fired a pellet at Joker, who dodged it.

"Missed again, Morgana! You useless fleabag! Now - PISS OFF, PUSSYCAT." Joker ran up like Charlie Brown and unlike that one-haired black zig-zag striped yellow-shirted loser, kicked the football.

"NOOOOOOOOO." The cat thing cried as Joker sent him flying into the stratosphere and he disappeared like a twinkling star.

"What the piglets rootin' for truffles heck was that all about?" Phoenix Joker, exasperated, asked Joker as he calmly reloaded his gun.

"Oh… nothing. Just a recurrent pest I've encountered in my Metaverse travels. But it should be smooth sailing from here on…" Suddenly alarms began blaring. "Oh, drat. Looks like Morgana was able to blow our cover. It's gonna get rocky road from here!"

Monstrous deformed orderlies and nurses in warped Arkham uniforms and sinister masks began pouring out of the workwork, making a beeline towards the Jokers.

"Aieeee! Monsters!" Phoenix Joker leapt into Leto Joker's welcoming arms out of fright. "DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME BACK TO THE ASYLUM!" Phoenix Joker had a PTSD flashback then.

"Relax, will you?" Joker rubbed his palms in anticipation. "I'LL REVEAL THEIR TRUE FORMS!"

Joker ran on the walls, before pirouetting into a backflip over the two fearful Jokers, to the behinds of the monster Arkham workers. With the strength of ten men, he grasped the masks of every monster and wrenched them off. The monsters disintegrated into dust, and in their place arose new monsters – some floating Jack O'Lanterns and pixies that looked far less menacing.

Joker then took hold of his mask and ripped it off, shouting as he did.

"PERSONA!" And in a flash of light, manifesting behind Joker was a regal archangel in a white robe, bladed feathers unfolding behind it. "ANNIHILATE THEM, METATRON!"

The angel conjured swirling blades from thin air and sent them flying into all the Jack O'Lanterns and pixies, utterly destroying them. The Jokers Two calmed down, amazed at the combat talent of their fellow Joker as the once menacing foes quivered in front of them convulsing like spastics at lightshow.

"My sole interest is in uncovering the truth." Joker twirled and posed quite majestically with his arms out like the Christ as the jack o lanterns and pixies exploded into blood and guts behind him.

"Wow Personas are awesome!" Leto Joker and Phoenix Joker applauded. "Can we do that too?"

"Personas aren't just handed out like candy in this business. You have to awaken to yours and I'm afraid we are on the clock here. But we'll see, shall we? Now come on! Let's keep up the pace! The treasure is calling and it's got our names on it!" Joker motioned as he sprinted off, and the two Jokers followed him, letting their junior take charge for in this element he was the master. Music then began playing, signifying that a montage was about to start.

* * *

_It's not a game I'm not a robot AI challenging you_

Joker led the other Jokers down corridors, evading or skillfully ambushing all foes in their way.

_I'm not a phantom I'm in your face and I'm here to see it through_

As shadows quivered before them, The Jokers held out their guns and unleashed a hail of bullets upon the helpless cognitive beasts, shredding them to bloody bloody wheat.

_Right before your eyes watch us multiply _

_Come to claim our rights _

_It's time_

"Shit this is even funner than Fortnite!" Leto Joker exclaimed as he and Phoenix Joker restrained a Narcissus as Joker tortured him with his knife, grinning like a Cheshire as he did.

_As our powers grows trying to stop us shows _

_Might as well go trying stop time_

Phoenix Joker shot a bunch of flying Anzu, bringing them all to the floor. He strolled over to Joker, high-faving the blackcoated thief, who then took charge.

_So you know that we're out there swatting lies in the making_

"Sweep them away, Baal!" Joker summoned the infamous Babylonian deity, Baal who destroyed the fallen Anzu with a monstrous windstorm.

_Can't move fast without breaking_

_Can't hold on or life won't change_

"Yay, treasure! We eatin' steak tonight, boys!" The Jokers high-fived and chest-bumped as Joker successfully picked a locked chest open and tons of treasure spilled out onto them.

_And our voices ring out, yeah_

_Took the mask off to feel free_

"With me, friend Jokers! ALL-OUT ATTACK!" Joker took charge as more enemies fell before them, and the Three Jokers attacked as one annihilating all who stood in their wake.

_Fought it out in the debris_

_Now we know that life will change_

The Jokers strutted down a corridor as the shadows fled before them, all gangsta-swag like. The music then faded out, signifying that the montage had come to an end.

* * *

The Jokers arrived at a door that said "Arkham Treasure Room."

"The treasure is right behind this door. We may have a tough fight ahead of us. The ruler will not allow us to snag it without a fight." Joker explained.

"Allow me. I've been wishing to wait that sneer off Robert De Niro's face for so long." Phoenix Joker kicked the door down this time.

"What the hell! This ain't the Arkham I know!" Leto Joker commented as they saw that they had wandered onto a set for a late night television talk show. In the audience was populated entirely by-

"Hey, those are people I know!" Phoenix Joker pointed out people in the audience. "There's my mom, my brown sugar mama Sophie, the midget and the other guys from my old job at Gotham Clown Central, and even Thomas Wayne – the man who may or may not be my true father!"

"Woo woo woo! Arthur Fleck is the best!" Everyone in the audience cheered. Phoenix Joker gaped in confusion, wondering why they were saying his name.

"Hey, I recognize all of this. This… this… is the Robert De Niro Show's set. I watched it every night. And it's dead accurate down to the last detail. Oh no… I've had this dream before." He realized.

Robert De Niro then got on stage, brushing past the Jokers like they were not even there. Phoenix Joker stepped forward to confront him, but Joker held out an arm in front of him.

"Hold your horses. I think you'll want to see this."

"Hello, fellow Gothamites. It's been a good run, entertaining you every night as host of The Robert De Niro show." People applauded and cheered as Robert De Niro took a mic and began speaking. "But it's time for me to move onto greener pastures, and for a new generation to keep the good times rolling."

A drum roll began as the talk show band began playing. The curtains parted and a spotlight fell on a mysterious figure entering the scene.

"No… no… it can't be!" Phoenix Joker cried but it was.

Skipping up to Robert De Niro full of joy was none other than the man he had once been.

Arthur Fleck.

"I'm proud to announce that taking over for me is Arthur Fleck, a lovely lad who is the son I wish I had. From here on out… The Robert De Niro Show is The Arthur Fleck Show!" Applause erupted as everyone began shouting Arthur's name.

"What the hell's happening?" Leto Joker looked at the other Jokers in confusion.

"Thank you, thank you all! It's been a lifelong dream of mine, to bring laughs to an audience all across the nation as Robert De Niro and all my idols do! And now that I'm here, I wanna thank you all from the heart with a special skit – protecting my treasure from these intruders!" Arthur Fleck spun around with a pointing finger of accusation at the Jokers.

"Seriously – what the hell is happening?" Jared Leto's Joker wailed, but his words fell on deaf ears for no one was was paying attention to him anymore now that Joaquin Phoenix's Joker had stolen the show.

"Nuh-uh. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take you off the air, Mr. Funny Man. Robin Hood, do your thing." Joker waved a wagging finger, before he summoned another Persona. An Archer Knight, with a flowing blue cape and bulging muscles, with a big RH on his chest like the S on Superman.

Robin Hood raised his bow and fired arrows into Arthur Fleck, pinning him to the wall before he could do anything.

"Aaaaaaaa!" Arthur Fleck screamed in pain as he bled stuck to the wall, while the audience and Robert De Niro fled in terror.

"Wait, Joker, what are you doing? I'm not the ene- what the?" Phoenix Joker felt sharp pain looked down and saw that Joker's knife was now sticking out of his side. He looked to where Joker was, and saw a metamorphosis in progress.

A white mask fell to the floor.

Joker shook out his hair, changing how he styled it. He took out a tube of "Insta Dye Remover" and squirted it onto his palms, before running his hand through his hair. As his hand came away, so did the obsidian black in his locks. Where the color black once was, there now was light brown.

"You're not the enemy? But Joker-Kun… I'm afraid you are." The boy who they had known as Joker chuckled sardonically, smirking like a madman as he raised his pistol at the other Jokers. But then with a quick swish of the arm, fired his pistol into the helpless Arthur Fleck. He then jammed the still hot barrel into the bullet wound, and laughed as the comedian screamed.

"Who the blazes are you? You're not truly Joker, are you?" Phoenix Joker gasped as fragments of the truth slowly dawned on him.

"Took you this long to figure it out, huh? Even with the foreshadowing as subtle as a sledgehammer?" The murderous boy grinned. "You can call me Akechi. Goro Akechi, multiversal assassin for hire."

The dumbstruck Jokers looked on mortified as the truth hit them.

"Wait, so you're not Ren Mamamia?" Leto Joker asked Akechi, which suddenly struck a nerve and the Japanese madman exploded into a blistering rant.

"No, of course I'm not Ren fucking Amamiya! That black haired douchebag thinks he's so wonderful cause his daddy who's not even his real daddy shows him how to make the best coffee and curry in Tokyo while my daddy who is my real fucking daddy won't even remember my birthday!" Akechi stomped his feet on the ground like a crying toddler.

"I, Goro Akechi, am the harbinger of justice! The second coming of the Detective Prince! But can I get a real good fuck? No! Just pathetic groupies who can't even puppy love kiss to save their lives! But Ren Amamiya is a criminal degenerate who bangs his teacher! HIS TEACHER! And his doctor. The student council president, too. Even his adopted little sister! Along with every other bitch he bumps into! And they're all good fucks! The kind of fucks I never get! I have it all on tape and I jerk off to it… every… fucking… night." Akechi seethed, turning red at the recollections. "I've done nothing but be a good boy my whole life but I get rewarded like shit for it! But he… that jackass joker gets everything I deserve! And I just know it… he's somehow gonna get into _her_ pants before I do… WHEN IT SHOULD BE ME BANGING MY GAVEL INTO NIIJIMA-SAN!"

"Wow… and I thought I had issues, kid." Phoenix Joker wiped his brow.

"You were never really our gaming bro, were you?" Leto Joker pointed accusingly.

"Of course not. I AM A CHAD INCARNATE! I'm popular with people, I'm fashionably handsome and awesomely athletic, I got lots of money, and most of all I HATE VIDEO GAMES." This last revelation made the two Jokers gasp the most horrified gasps they had ever gasped. "Ren is the ultimate virgin, he wears glasses for fuck's sake! But Ren and his bastard Phantom Thieves… they've warped the society of my homeland to where us chads are denied our rightful pickings! The best bitches that should be mine are instead in the clutches of those fucking gamers!"

"Wow, Japan sounds awesome. No wonder why they make the best games." Leto Joker remarked.

"Shut up, tattooed tool." Akechi snarled before he pulled out a lightsaber and held it to the throat of Arthur Fleck, who was still stuck to the wall by arrows and in pain. "But back to business. I was hired to kill you, Joaquin Phoenix's Joker. And it's about time I did it. I didn't even have to bring you here, into your own palace to watch your shadow die. But I did just to make you suffer by knowing just how much of a fool you were played for!"

"Well these fools have just woken up! And we're gonna put you back to sleep – FOREVER!" Leto Joker charged towards Akechi with his knife out.

"Foolish fool! Smite him, Robin Hood!" Akechi ordered and Robin Hood blasted Leto Joker with Megidolaon, ravaging his tattooed body with almighty damage.

"Aaaaaagh!" Leto Joker went flying and he landed on his dick. As he nursed himself in pain, meanwhile Phoenix Joker struggled to his feet as Akechi advanced upon Shadow Arthur Fleck. Phoenix Joker remembered in some exposition about the Metaverse that occurred in between Chapter 3 and 4 that his Shadow was the twisted reflection of his most distorted desires, and that if his Shadow died at Akechi's hands, so would he. He knew that he had to stop him. The laughs couldn't end here.

"Still some fight left in you, clown? My, my, such a waste. You should've let your end come quietly." Akechi smugly brushed some hair out of his eyes and tsk'ed. "You can't change your fate, you know. Trust me, I've tried."

"The show… must… go… on." Phoenix Joker gripped the knife still stuck in his side and with the howl of a wounded animal, tore it out. He then lit a cigarette and use it to cauterize his wounds, gritting the whole time. "Did you think this Joker could never win?"

Akechi said nothing as Phoenix Joker held the knife stained with his own blood out at Akechi in challenge.

"Well, I'm still standing. Better than I ever did!" Phoenix Joker shouted.

"Dude, did you just quote Elton John? That shit's gay." Leto Joker groaned. "Fuck can't cha listen to good shit, like twenty one pilots?"

"Shut up, Jared Leto's Joker. Elton John's music rocks and Rocketman is a damn good movie." Phoenix Joker then returned his attention to Akechi who was motioning impatiently for them to get on with it. "Ren, Goro… whatever the heck your real name is… I can't say it wasn't… 'KNIFE' to meet you!"

Phoenix Joker threw the knife at Akechi, who without a scrap of fear, perfectly caught the knife out of mid-air. He then stabbed Shadow Arthur Fleck in the gut with it.

"Your game has barely begun, and already I tire of it." Akechi sighed. "I see I have no choice but to end you with the most brute of forces I possess…"

"Oh, whatchu gonna do? Shoot me with your shittier-than-Ridley-Scott's Robin Hood?" Phoenix Joker taunted before he shot Robin Hood with a special bullet that disintegrated the Persona. He then pulled out his phone, which had set its web-browser to the guide for Persona 5 on Gamefags. "I read the game guide, you know! I have a gun loaded with Curse bullets, Robin Hood's weakness!"

Akechi took the destruction of his Persona in stride.

"I'll let you in on a little secret…" Akechi calmly began. "COME LOKI!" Akechi suddenly screeched as he summoned another Persona and there was a sudden flash of smoke. When the dust cleared, Akechi was now wearing an all-black suit of armor with a stupid Power Rangers mask. A new Persona that looked nothing like Tom Hiddleston or Matt Damon was floating behind him. "I may not be the Joker of Japan… but I am the BATMAN OF JAPAN!"

"I am sick of hearing that name! Batman this, Batman that! Every Joker I've run with has a Batman, except for me! I don't see why! I'm doing fine without some flying rat dogging me!" Phoenix Joker complained. "I bet you're real tough, Batman, picking on some powerless Joker like me with your fancy Persona powers! Real fair?"

"Oh, so how do you propose I vanquish you?" Akechi humored him.

"WITH A DANCE-OFF, OBVIOUSLY!" Phoenix Joker said as he got a bright idea and as he did, the whole of the talk show set suddenly shifted and morphed into a flashing dance club with disco balls and lights.

* * *

The fate of the Jokers would be settled with dancing in starlight, with Shadow Arthur Fleck being the judge.

First up was Goro Akechi, dancing alone to the song Will Power from the Persona 5 soundtrack.

Akechi's dancing was pretty shit. He just did a bunch of twirls walking backwards and gyrating for his dancing, looking like he was having a mental breakdown all the while. He didn't have any partners to dance with, so he just summoned his Persona Loki to dance with him like a total virgin.

"Man, we got this in the bag." Leto Joker whispered to Phoenix Joker, who stretched his palms out deliciously in anticipation of finally crushing this pesky Nipponese with his moves.

Phoenix Joker and Leto Joker were dancing together, and Phoenix Joker used his cognitive powers as ruler of this palace to bring back Ledger Joker and Nicholson Joker out of nothingness, along with Romero Joker to dance with them as well. Finally all the Jokers from live-action cinema were united under one roof, ready to finally defeat Batman.

Phoenix Joker took out his jukebox and began playing the classic 90s pop song, Everybody (Backstreet's Back) by the Backstreet Boys. The Five Jokers began doing the Backstreet's Back Alright dance, before seguing epic improvised routines that put even coordinated productions to shame.

The song transitioned to a soft piano instrumental version, and the Jokers paused like still statues. Suddenly the track stilled, before suddenly switching to a hard-tempo death metal synth remix of Get in the Groove by Madonna. On cue The Jokers then split off into pairs, with Romero and Nicholson doing the tango and Leto and Ledger waltzing. In between the two dancing pairs was Phoenix Joker as he hit dancing fever climax, dropping sick moves on fire like the little kid who gets French fried in Gaspar Noe's film Climax before the other Jokers split apart into his back-up.

Every Joker then got his cool solo dance. Cesar Romero's Joker danced the Batusi to Surf City by Jan and Dean, before Jack Nicholson's Joker moonwalked past him set to Billie Jean before snapping into none other than the Batdance set to Prince's Partyman. Heath Ledger's Joker hopped on by head-banging to Last Resort by Papa Roach, before Jared Leto's Joker leapt onto centerstage and pumped it to Purple Lamborghini by Skrillex from the soundtrack of Suicide Squad.

By the way, wasn't Prince so much better of a problematic pop musician than that MJ?

But all these songs were drowned out and these dances overshadowed as a giant set of Bronx steps sprouted up and spotlights fell upon Joaquin Phoenix's Joker as Rock and Roll Part 2 by convicted pederast musician Gary Glitter played. He then recreated his iconic stairway dance from the movie Joker.

As he reached the last step, the dance winded to a close.

"Hey, that was some good ass dancing!" Shadow Arthur Fleck congratulated the Jokers. "I think it's safe to say we have a winner here!"

"Yeah, we did it! We defeated a Batman, the Chad Incarnate! A victory for gamers!" The Jokers all cheered, feeling that this was the greatest days of their lives.

Akechi then walked up to them.

"Hey, Akechi, your dancing sucks and you lost. You have to let us go now." Joaquin Phoenix's Joker ordered.

"Nah." Akechi laughed.

"Rules are rules! You lost the dance-off! Did you see how amazing our dancing was? No way you could've won!" Phoenix Joker insisted, as the other Jokers yelled in agreement.

"I wouldn't know. I didn't see your dancing. While you were dancing, I actually dipped out to the Velvet Room. Did a little bit of… fusing." Akechi snapped his fingers, summoning a new Persona that was the size of skyscrapers and gods. It was his Ultimate Persona, a supermuscular shining white-robed man with a glorious flowing mane and beard holding some fish and loaves of bread. "I told you I was a Batman. I had a contingency for your little dance-off."

"Hey, that's cheating." Heath Ledger's Joker pointed out.

"Yeah, cheating's wrong. You shouldn't do it." Jack Nicholson's Joker wagged a chiding figure.

Akechi scoffed. The track "Our Beginning" from the soundtrack of Persona 5 started to play.

"I am Goro Akechi. I don't do wrongs."

"…well, shit." Was all the Jokers could say before Akechi raised a ray gun at them and as he did, his Persona took out a giant cross-shaped rocket launcher loaded with nuclear nail-shaped rockets.

"PILLAGE HIM, JESUS!" Akechi commanded.

And all went nuclear.

* * *

When the smoke finally cleared, Phoenix Joker saw that the three cognitive Jokers he had summoned were dead. As was his Shadow, who finished disintegrating in front of his very eyes.

That meant that he too would go soon. Already he could feel the chill creeping in. Slowly, but inevitably.

The only Joker left unscathed was Jared Leto's, who was surveying the death and destruction around him in horror.

"What about me?" He asked, utterly broken. (this is a direct reference to Sergio Leone's underrated masterpiece, Duck You Sucker)

Akechi laughed as he dusted himself off.

"You? You're the most pathetic Joker of all. The worst. Such a terrible Joker the only threat you are is to yourself, Jared Leto. Why waste the treatment I gave the worthy Jokers upon you? I'd be doing the Joker Gang a favor by killing you… but why be so merciful?" Akechi then kneecapped Jared Leto's Joker with his raygun.

"Nuuuuuuhhhh!" Leto Joker cried as he collapsed.

"Poor widdle Jokers. You thought you could break apart from society and play the game your way… but you were always playing by society's rules. And society always wins." Akechi taunted them as he disappeared into the shadows, leaving only the dying and the defeated Jokers as the palace fell apart all around them.

"I can't believe it. I thought we gamers could rise up… but it turns out society was always taller than us no matter what." Phoenix Joker mumbled, a defeated clown.

Leto Joker dragged his broken body over to Phoenix Joker.

"It's over for me, old friend." Phoenix Joker ruefully admitted.

"Say it ain't so… what about Joker Gang? What's gonna happen to the grand 'ol revolution? The fight for Gamer's Rights? We can't let it end like this, my dear Joker!" Leto Joker begged.

"No… you can't let it end. My last laugh… looms." Phoenix Joker again emphasized. "But if you will lend me one favor…"

Phoenix Joker poked his finger into the wounds on Leto Joker, coating his finger in blood.

"Ouchies!" Leto Joker smarted before Phoenix Joker wrote the words "Joker Says" on his bare chest. Phoenix Joker gargled a strained growl, clearing his throat before looking directly at the camera.

"Hey kids… long time no see. And I'm sorry to saw that this'll be the last Joker Says. And I got something heavy to say. Something close to the heart of yours truly, something that'll be very important for all you boys listening now to hear. Don't ever deny or be ashamed of your feelings and try to be something that you ain't. It shouldn't be okay to just sleepwalk through life, bottling up all that toxicity. If only I had known that sooner… that it was okay to do nothing but play video games all day instead of trying to dream big, I think I might've turned out okay in life instead of what I became in the end." Phoenix Joker coughed.

"Buh-bye, kids. And no matter what, I loved being your Joker. Even if it was just for a day, it was the best day ever." Phoenix Joker waved good-bye.

He looked at Leto Joker, eternal sadness crossing in the space between their eyes.

"Leto…"

"Yeah, Phoenix?"

"About earlier… back when we were talkin' movies… let's do it. Before I die… I wanna know that at least I died loved."

"You got it, buddy. You were the measure of my dreams." Leto Joker choked down some tears before he and Phoenix Joker both struggled but managed to slide their pants off and dragged themselves by the nails till their lips were so close they could meet.

The song "Almost Unreal" by Roxette began to play.

And meet their lips did. The last Jokers embraced, like dancers at the end of time. And then, with the most intimate of friendships and understandings between men confident and at peace at last with their masculinity, they uncorked one another's champagne.

And so Arthur Fleck, the man who had become Joker, died a happier man than he had ever lived.

* * *

Epilogue 1 – Akechi

Sometime after he had disposed of The Jokers, Akechi had changed into his school uniform and was spending his last day in Gotham City at a diner having delicious pancakes for breakfast.

"Nothing helps celebrate another successful hit better than a heaping stack of delicious pancakes." Akechi stated as he drowned the fluffy circular wheat concoctions in sweet, sweet maple syrup.

"Akechi, it's good to see you!" Said a familiar voice. Akechi looked up and he saw that it was his fellow Chad and heroicly handsome detective extraordinaire, Batman! Paparazzi crawled out of the woodwork, snapping photos of the two famous crimebusters together.

"Hello, Batman. How's it hanging?" Akechi warmly greeted his fellow Dark Knight Detective.

"Just awesome, Akechi. I heard you finally got rid of those troublesome Jokers, on the grapevine." Batman flashed him the thumbs-up.

"Indeed. Ah… here is the second half of my payment on Venmo, right now." Akechi's phone pinged with a notification. "Robert De Niro is a man of his word."

"You're doing Society a huge favor. Those gamers have gotten too big for their britches. And lemme tell you, it ain't just the gamers we have to be keeping an eye on now." Batman warned Akechi. "Those comic book readers are another developing threat of interest."

"Well, keep those threats rolling. Just more business for me, and as such, more and more delicious pancakes to celebrate with. Goro Akechi always gets his man." Akechi forked off a piece of pancake and ate it. "So, so good…"

Akechi let out a satisfied aaaaaah.

"Preserving the status quo for the Elite of Society like this… assassinating anyone who dare disrupt the flow, I truly do feel like I've achieved my boyhood dream of being a superhero. Ah, to never do anything wrong." Akechi proudly remarked.

"Well, that's just what a superhero does. So, Akechi, wanna drop by the manor to hang out? Tony and T'challa are also swinging by to celebrate our achievements in preserving the Status Quo for billionaires everywhere." Batman offered. "Well, provided T'challa doesn't get pulled over by the cops again."

"Thank you for your offer, but I must decline, regrettably." Akechi's phone pinged again. "For I've got work to do. I've been paid greatly in both Clinton Cash and Trumpy Bucks along with several other elite funds to make sure Mr. Epstein doesn't talk."

"Uh, Mr. Epstein is already dead." Batman pointed out. "He died like back in August."

"Well, I am Goro Akechi – nomad of the time streams. The Multiverse's Assassin for Hire. What makes you think linear time is a concern for me?" Akechi smiled politely as he and Batman shook goodbye. Akechi straightened out his collar and picked up his briefcase, before he activated a special app on his phone and opened up a time portal to August 10, 2019.

"Wait, that was you?" Batman wondered. Akechi just kept smiling, mysterious-like as he readied a silenced pistol.

With that smile extending into a devilish leer, Akechi stepped through, eager to get back to work.

* * *

**Epilogue 2 - Bob the Goon**

Bob the Goon had spent days now doing nothing but sweeping the Joker's apartment. His legs were like slippery buffet jello, his arms felt as if they had been encased on concrete molds, and his back begged to bend and snap. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything except his own spit and snot in forever.

"Guys? Mr. J?" Bob the Goon called out, hanging onto his broom for support. "I'm... I think I'm done. Can I... can I go home now?"

No answer came.

Bob the Goon sighed. "Fine, I'll do another shift."

The broom and dustpan were no longer just tools. They were extensions of his bodies. Extra limbs. He was a sweeper and a sweeper was him.

This was going to be a long century.

* * *

**Epilogue 3 – The Joker**

Now the last man standing, there was no longer a need to put a distinguishing moniker on Jared Leto's Joker. Stained upon his hands was the last thing that Joaquin Phoenix's Joker would ever bring into the world. Nobody wanted it this way, but he was the last of them. Jared Leto was The Joker.

It had been a horrifying sight. It had occurred right as Phoenix's Joker had sprouted the humpback whale. His fellow Joker's body had convulsed violently like an eternal seizure victim, as his eyes turned pure black and bled. It had been such a horrible way to go.

The palace had crumbled long ago. His conception of the flow of time had gone all awry since all went to hell in Arthur Fleck's palace. He wandered through a hellscape for such an eternity that The Joker had become numb to all its insanity and torment.

"Why am I still here? Just to suffer?" The Joker wondered to himself. He had nothing but Akechi's last words to him to go on. That he was the worst Joker there would ever be, that he did not deserve to exist but existed just so he could suffer knowing so. The Shadows closed in on him with every step he took, but none made the move to kill him. Maybe they all thought he wasn't worth the effort.

He saw a gun that just happened to be lying on the floor.

"Finally. A chance to end it all. I'm too damaged to go on." He put the gun to his head and without hesitation, fired.

But something queer happened. He did not die.

"What the fudge?" The Joker then turned the gun over to the side and saw that something was written on it. "What the fudge is a SEES?"

He then underwent another funky trip. The whole world turned into an acid hamster wheel, a bathtub of hallucination set unmoored in the big quake to end all quakes. The Joker screamed, desiring solidity. Something concrete. He saw before him a fluttering blue Joker card. Without thinking, he grabbed at the card, shattering it.

He then heard someone's voice in the back of his head. Or was it his voice, or something else entirely?

"You have reached a crossroads. So shall you award your detractors the gratification of seeing you give in?"

The Joker remembered everything. Being made fun of for being a gamer and forced to pretend he wasn't to fit into society, even losing his girlfriend because she discovered he was a gamer.

"No…" The Joker said with an epiphany. "I'm not the one who's damaged. The whole rest of society is!"

"Then enter the contract of chaos. Shed the falsehoods that have marred your path!"

A massive headache seized him. So painful he thought his noggin just might explode.

"I am thou, thou art I." The voice told him. The Joker felt the pain coalescing in his iconic Damaged tattoo. "Unleash your true form!"

The Joker screamed as he ripped the Damaged tattoo off of his face, blood erupting and coursing down as he did.

"PERSONA!" The Joker shouted as he gained a Persona, and power began coursing through him. Dust clouds whipped up all around him as he summoned his Persona, an armored knight crossed with a white trash rapper wielding a lance that was also a giant mic that was also a machine gun. The Shadows around him all quivered as The Joker looked them over.

"Eminem… SHOW THEM YOUR TOYS!" The Joker cackled as he unleashed his true power at last through his Persona, Eminem. As he destroyed the cannon fodder with rap god powers, The Joker had but one thought on his mind.

Revenge.

And did he have a big list to check off.

* * *

**Epilogue 4 – Big in Japan**

The true Ren Amamiya, who Goro Akechi had impersonated in his gambit to destroy The Joker, was blissfully unaware of the events that had transpired in America. The Joker of Japan was instead enjoying a lazy Sunday hanging out with his good bros, the delinquent track zero Ryuji Sakamoto and the artistic auteur Yusuke Kitagawa, at Café LeBlanc.

Along with another close confidant, of the feminine variety.

The bros were sitting on the couch in his room, with plates and cups of the famous LeBlanc curry and coffee. Ren had recently used his Mementos earnings to buy a karaoke machine, and they had invited one of his dear lovers – the hard-working and modest homeroom teacher Ms. Sadayo Kawakami, to do some singing with them.

Ms. Kawakami was performing the classic 80s hit, Heartbreak Mermaid.

"Wow, Ms. Kawakami's got the voice of an angel? Who knew?" Ryuji said, amazed.

"And a most pleasing form, for a woman of her age. It would make many of my fellow students at Kohei envious or lustful." Yusuke observed. "A pity I left my canvas and brushes at home."

"Hehe, you flatter me, you two, but there's only one man here I let flatten me." Ms. Kawakami winked as she flourished and pointed the mic at Ren.

"Wait… what." Ryuji suddenly realized some dirty implications. "Ren… for real? You do, um, realize, she's like your teacher and um… friggin' old enough to be-"

"That's the best part." Ren smiled as he sipped his coffee.

Suddenly, a furious red-eyed girl in a blue winter jacket and a bob of brown hair burst from up the stairs into the room. It was another of his close female confidants, the brainy justice fister, Makoto Niijima!

"You two-timing son of a bitch! I thought you promised me last time was the last time!" Makoto seethed.

"Oops, I did it again." Ren shrugged, sing-song voice. Makoto went berserk but instead of turning her wrath upon the adulterous boyfriend, she charged at her rival for his affections. And Ms. Kawakami returned the venom in full equality.

"You vile, wrinkly siren! You know a boy his age is so easily impressionable! And yet you still take advantage of him, you treacherous witch!" Makoto yelled at Ms. Kawakami as the two females locked hands and pushed against each other, locked in a stalemate.

"Perhaps he simply likes a woman with experience, not a little girl trying to hard to be someone special! Sometimes I even let him be the teacher in our private lessons… so, so fun. But not like you'll ever know, bitch. So about you fuck off and go cry to Big Sister like you always do?" Ms. Kawakami shot back.

"That does it! I'll make sure no one, young or old, ever wants your snatch again!" Makoto raised her leg and did a muay thai knee into Ms. Kawakami's crotch.

"Hell yeah, I usually hafta get a computer virus for this kinda entertainment!" Ryuji cheered.

"This is where the fun begins." Ren twiddled his fingers.

"Aaaaaagh! Oh, you'll pay for that, you little whore!" Ms. Kawakami shouted in pain and struggled to maintain her footing. She retaliated by butting Makoto in the head, and threw her rival onto the ground.

"Oh, what're you gonna do, gimme a bad grade? I'm so scared, Ms. Kawacummy!" Makoto snarled.

"Fuck yeah, I'm gonna give you a bad grade." Ms. Kawakami climbed onto the younger student to pin her, slapping her several times. "Muckoto, when I'm through with you, your breasts will be graded F… forever!"

As Ms. Kawakami began working Makoto's breasts like punching bags, Ryuji and Ren cheered and hooted, high-fiving each other. Yusuke however was very horrified.

"Ladies, do not fight! It shames your station as women to tarnish your innate aesthetic with physical altercations over such a petty matter." Yusuke pleaded but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Makoto reversed Kawakami's dominating pin, and soon the two hellcats were tussling on the floor like a tornado of hair-pulling, low-blowing, and clothes-tearing. As more articles of clothing came away destroyed onto the floor, Ryuji and Ren cheered like their hometeam was winning the World Series and they got out their phones to snap pictures.

"Very well, if you two insist on allowing this buffoonery to persist, I will request you get some pictures of their feet as they commit to this superfluous extravagance of barbarity in your roll. I do enjoy staring at lady's feet." Yusuke suddenly said, and Ryuji and Ren's mouths dropped in wide horror, like Yusuke had just confessed he believed Hitler was right.

At that moment, a battered looking black and white cat limped in.

"Oh hey, Morgana's back. Did he drag anything back in?" Yusuke observed.

"Hey kitty, look, it's a catfight! And both of 'em still kick more ass than you can!" Ryuji pointed out before shouting to Morgana. Morgana ignored the two tussling catfighters and pitter-pattered over to Ren, leaping onto his lap.

"Very funny, Ryuji. Not." Morgana then turned his head to Ren. "I got bad news. Akechi's back, and he's causing all sorts of mischief in the American Metaverse."

"How's that my problem?" Ren shrugged. "I'm sick of Akechi. Akechi this, Akechi that. Akechi's not that interesting, you know."

"Well, don't you care about justice? Akechi's making another perversion of it and that's not okay." Morgana purred diplomatically.

"Meh, it's America. Don't see how Akechi can pervert those freaks' idea of justice even more than they've already done themselves." Ren spooned some curry on rice into Morgana's mouth, as he pet the cat.

"Yeah, America sucks. I hate 'em." Ryuji said.

"Those obese charlatans know nothing of art." Yusuke added.

"Besides, we're kinda busy here." Ren pointed out Makoto and Ms. Kawakami, who were still slugging each other, fueled by nothing but their hate.

"I gotta admit, there is something about it when girls fight each other…" Morgana's eyes sparkled like diamonds, like he had just seen free treasure. "…Me-ow."

Soon Ren, Ryuji, and Morgana were all partying like there was no tomorrow, as the vicious war between the two ladies showed no sign of abating. Whatever schemes Akechi was up to, and the urgency of stopping said schemes, was totally forgotten for satiating their libido. Yusuke simply buried his head in his palms, uttering the word baka over and over like a broken record.

"Ren loves me!" Ms. Kawakami tried to get Makoto into a leglock.

"No, he loves me!" Makoto wriggled out and treated Kawakami's chin to some palm-cake.

"Wait, I thought he loved me." An unexpected voice rang out. Their heated brawl cooled down momentarily as the hellcats looked up to see an intruder, a familiar blue-eyed girl in red with blonde hair tied into pigtails. It was none other than Ann Takamaki.

"Oh, you fucking-" Ann addressed Ren but before she could lay it into him Ms. Kawakami and Makoto set up a temporary truth as they both lay into her with a nice Sunday punch to the sides of her mixed-race face that segued into a tackle, and soon that truth shattered into a three-way smackdown.

"Yeah! Show 'em what's what, Lady Ann!" Morgana cheered as he chose his favorite.

"Hey settle down, yer blockin' my view!" Ryuji smacked Morgana, sending him flying right into the fray.

"Meowwwch!" Morgana instinctively popped his claws out, leaving red marks across the bare skin of all the ladies and destroying what little clothing they had left.

"Yeah, reveal their true form!" Ren hooted and pumped his fists in the air, while Yusuke only sighed in exasperation.

-XX-

Sojiro Sakura, proprietor of Café LeBlanc, heard the commotion that was occurring upstairs. He knew that Ren would be having guests over today, but he hadn't expected such noise. It was like a miniature tsunami had been unleashed in the attic. A tsunami of irate, shouting women. And he'd already been getting noise complaints, stretching all the way to the clinic.

"I can hazard a guess at what my precious guinea pig's gotten up to… but I'll take my own medical advice – curiosity killed the cat and I'd rather hang onto my lives for now." The blue-haired doctor told him before she made a mayday to the door.

"Hey, pay for that coffee you ordered – god damn it, Amamiya." Sojiro sighed before he straightened his apron and headed to the stairs to climb them.

As Sojiro reached the top, he poked his head in.

"Hey, what's going on-"

Sojiro saw what was going on.

"Nope." Sojiro headed back down as quickly as he had come up.

"Hoo boy." Sojiro said to himself as he returned to the kitchen. He went to the café door and flipped the closed sign around. The last thing he needed was some nosy fellow, like that TV detective kid or prosecutor women who kept popping in here, to find out and ruin business with word of mouth. Still, Ren's proclivities regarding women did bring Sojiro some fond memories of his own reckless youth.

The door jingled open, as someone stepped in clearly ignoring the sign.

"Sorry, we're close-" Sojiro was about to say when a familiar young voice spoke up.

"Sojiro, I hunger!" A young bespectacled girl, petite in frame and pale in complexion, with her hair dyed orange, hopped onto a seat at the bar. It was his adopted daughter, Futaba Sakura. And another victim of Ren's… impulses.

"Your favorite curry coming right up, Futaba." Sojiro poured Futaba a cup of coffee, and then went to the fridge to rifle through its ingredients.

"Say, Sojiro, where's Ren? Is he upstairs?" At that moment, Futaba heard the barely muffled sound of Makoto bodyslamming Ann onto the floor. "Ooh, did he get a new video game? It sounds like a video game! Is it Smash? I wanna play Smash!"

Futaba began to make her way to the staircase. Sojiro's alarms went blaring and like Sonic the Hedgehog he scrambled to the bottom of the steps to block Futaba off.

"No, Futaba, it's nothing of the sort! Ren's not even home! It's… um… the cleaning service upstairs!"

"Really? I know the cleaning service Ren uses and she sounds nothing like that!"

"Well… a new service in town and I'm trying them out. It's called… er… College Hunks Cleaning Stuff Like Punks. That's why it sounds like a fight up there."

"Oh." Futaba thought about Sojiro's explanation. "Okay."

Before Futaba could return to the seat and Sojiro to his cooking, there was a knock at the door.

"Who could it be now?" Sojiro groaned.

"I'll get it! Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm~" Futaba hummed as she skipped to the door and opened it up.

Standing in the doorway was a curious sight.

A tall and lanky foreign white man, as white as a ghost, with rather stupid looking tattoos all over his skin. He was dressed like a tacky American tourist, complete with a Hawaiian shirt, panama hat, and a camera around his neck.

"Ugh. It's the shitty Joker. Why couldn't I have gotten the good Joker from the Dark Knight movie instead." Futaba complained out loud.

Shen then noticed that in his hands, he was holding a revolver.

"Smile." The Joker said in English.

Futaba could only stare as The Joker fired the revolver into her, aimed where the shot could shatter spine.

She dropped the coffee she was holding in shock. She was shocked. And wet.

It was just a water pistol.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"That's for killing me in Fortnite yesterday. Yeah, I know who you are… gamertag Alibaba!" The Joker said in mangled Japanese.

"So you went all the way from… Gaijintopia to here just to avenge your death? Well, that is a change from the usual demand for n00ds. O-kay… what the heck do you want, Joker? Oh, and B-T-W, we already have a Joker. He also dresses way cooler than you." Futaba stuck her tongue out.

"Yeah, I know. Me Worst Joker amirite. But I'm okay with that. Better to be yourself and love yourself, than to be loved while hating what you've become." The Joker pointed to his iconic damaged tattoo with a finger gun and mimed shooting himself.

"That sounds kinda stupid. My Joker never says anything that stupid."

"Whatever, kid. I'm here cause I need his help. And I'm going to need your help, too." The Joker said with a twinkle in his eye. "The Chads grow bold seek to undo all the advances our precious minority, the gamers, have gained in these past decades. And we cannot rely on the one-percent or Congress to save us. A war is coming. The War of Gamers and Chads. Our civil rights and liberties as gamers are at risk and we must all join together to fight for ourselves. And I'm drafting the world. Will you be the first to join the all-new, all-daring rebirth of Joker Gang?"

The Joker finished his speech with a big smile on his face.

"Nah, sounds gay." Futaba then slammed the door shut on him.

"Aw, c'mon! I practiced that speech and rewrote it like fifty-two fucking times! You gotta help me! I got a Persona just like yous all do!" The Joker banged on the closed LeBlanc door to no avail. And so he gave up. Now he was stuck in a strange land, with no idea what to do next.

Japan was way less cool than all the anime and video games made it out to be.

-XX-

The Joker wandered through Tokyo Town aimlessly, trying to think of what to do next. He proceed to begin crossing a crosswalk. Meanwhile, a limousine was approaching.

Inside the limousine, Yosuke Hanamura was chauffeuring a silver-haired young man radiating massive chad energy from every bit of his being. From the radio player, a hit Risette single played. In his arms the silver-haired man held Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi as the two small-town lasses cuddled him wearing nothing more than thin-string bikinis. They planted endless kisses on his cheeks, while Naoto Shirogane had her head buried in his lap sucking away like the man was the last Tootsie pop in the whole wide world.

With a snap of his fingers, Chie and Yukiko embraced and made out with each other for the pleasure of the man, their breasts and bellies squashed together like PB & J. Right as he finished his interrogation of Naoto, the og Detective Prince, filling her small mouth with so many clues to the case that she swelled up like a chipmunk. The silver-haired man proceeded to pet Naoto like a pet puppy as she wiped her mouth.

Yosuke adjusted the rear-view mirror for a glimpse of the action he would never get but was right within his grasp as if to mock him, sighing as he did.

Who was this man? Why, none other than Yu Narukami!

Yosuke saw that the light was red. He put his foot on the brakes.

"Hey, why the hell we slowing down?" Yu snapped the moment he noticed.

"Uh, Yu, it's a red light! I gotta stop, it's the law! And there's like people too!"

"I don't give a shit, Yosuke! I'm here in Tokyo to rise in Rise and I won't accept any excuses delaying my mic going boom in her recording studio!" Yu shoved his hos aside and went over to the driver's seat. There, Yu smacked Yosuke really hard. "Besides, bitch, I say you could talk?"

"Owie owie! Fine!" Yosuke ran the light. All the denizens of Tokyo screamed and leapt for cover, except for The Joker, who didn't notice cause he was wearing air pods.

The limousine ran The Joker over, killing him.

**The End**


End file.
